Halo: Never Forget
by RihnKuriko
Summary: Set in an alternate universe where an unlucky ODST, Ryner Blaine, has been sent to Noble Team to take down insurrection forces, but finds himself fighting for the survival of Reach when the Covenant attacks. He has lived through hard times, and will continue to survive despite the odds against him. he has a secret, one that even he does not know.
1. Chapter 1: Six Nobles and Their Dog

Chapter 1: The Six Nobles and Their Dog

July 24, 2552. Reach.

0728 hrs

He sat on the deck made of metal, just outside of the doorway the led to the team of Spartans within. He'd turn to see the two giants outfitted in blue armor glance at him from time to time, referring back to a data pad the female was holding. The man sighed, getting an exhasperated expression from the female as she bolted up. The man simply scratched his head.

"You sure?" he asked the woman, gaining a nod.

"I'm positive." She replied. The man sighed, turning around to meet the face of an ONI agent, and Colonel Urban Holland. He grunted.

"Alright, we'll keep him with us." he grumbled, tapping his helmet. "If he's as good as you say he is, why not have him stationed somewhere else? Somewhere important?"

"You will find out soon enough." The agent told him. "Now, your orders. Colonel Holland?"

Ryner couldn't be bothered to strain his hearing farther, and instead decided to look at the grey morning sky. He was waiting for something, anything, to happen. To his surprise, something did. A Warthog pulled up on the other side of the building, behind a Falcon, and another Spartan jumped out. Her armor was black and cobalt in color, with a single red stripe on her left thigh. Her visor was pitch black, and reflected little of the visible light. She walked up to the building, and paused to stare at him. Only for a moment, within the next second she had disappeared into the building with the others. About three minutes later, the five Spartans exited the building, and headed to the Falcon.

The tall man in blue stopped long enough to grab Ryner's arm, and pull him off the ground.

"You're riding with me," he said, practically dragging the smaller human along the ground. Ryner took his seat across from the Spartan with the black armor.

"Why am I here, sir?" he asked the Spartan in blue.

"Carter." the Spartan replied. "And you're here because ONI said so," _great, so now ONI is gonna get me killed._ "At least, that was before I read your file. You are interesting."

"I am?"

"Yes, according to ONI you're qualified to fight _beside_ us." he said, not hiding his irritation. "Supposedly, you're more than capable of taking down Covenant forces." Ryner shrugged. "So, you're gonna be like that, is it? Fine."

Once the Falcon landed, the team of seven scouted the area, finding what remained of a Marine unit. Ryner couldn't grimace at it, as he didn't much care. Carter assumed it was an interrogation, that insurrectionists had done it, but Ryner knew better. He quickly ran to the next building, keeping his eyes open for any sudden movement.

The woman in black must have had the same gut feeling, because she was running closely behind him. He saw her pull back the slide of her Magnum, and round a corner. Ryner followed her lead, opening fire on the three targets as he came upon the enemy. It was the Covenant.

"Contact!" she called from his right, opening fire on the enemy below.

"Spartans, assist!" he could hear Carter echo from a few meters behind him. The other five super soldiers appeared, killing the enemy in perfect sync with one another. He and the woman in Black kept on their own, taking precise shots from their positions. At one point, Ryner jumped down into the open field, opening fire with his Assault Rifle on the last few enemies that remained. He looked back to see Carter shake his head.

Visegrad Relay, hours later…

The Elite Zealot jumped out of nowhere, almost bisecting Jorge and the civilian woman with an energy sword. He ducked down, and called to the rest of Noble Team, getting their attention on the enemy in full. The biggest one lunged at Six, but knocked Ryner to the ground instead when he shoved her out of the way. The second one was upon him, growling up close to his visor.

He punched it in the mandibles in an attempt to knock it off of him, however he only heard the cracking of two of his knuckles as the Elite's head was thrown to the side. The Energy Dagger on its gauntlet was activated as it brought down its arm in a swinging motion. Ryner used his left arm as a shield as he pulled his Magnum from his hip and began unloading the magazine into its stomach.

The Zealot was kicked to the side by both Carter and the Spartan in Black, who both started firing their Assault Rifles at it. As it crawled away, Black pulled on Ryner's arm to get him off the ground. One of the Elites had taken the Marine on the floor as a hostage, and used him as a shield to keep his comrades from dying.

"Permission to pursue?" Emile asked from Ryner's left.

"Negative, Four, stay on the entrance. Two, handle her. Five, Blaine, and Six, clear the hole." Carter ordered, using his hand to motion the three soldiers forwards. Ryner flexed his fingers as he started walking with the other two, looking over to see Black, who he now knew was Six, pull the DMR off her back. The Spartan threw the Rifle in his direction, which he caught, and loaded. His night vision switched on as Jorge slammed the door behind them shut.

Jorge threw a flare across the room, causing the remaining covenant forces to emerge. Six and Jorge began unloading their weapons on the Grunts and Jackals that came out of cover. Ryner stayed back, and fired his DMR sparingly, killing the enemy snipers or flankers. The Zealot from before began firing a Concussion Rifle at the Spartans, nearly hitting them both. In a split-second decision, he started firing at the Elite's head.

The Zealot tanked two of the shots, and dove down a corridor to Ryner's right. He slammed his fist against his cover as the two Spartans finished up the last few Covenant. Six walked over to him with her Rifle still trained on where the enemy had come from, and tapped his helmet.

"You alright, kid?" Six asked, gaining a nod from the ODST. "How's your arm?"

"Fine, Lieutenant." he replied, vaulting over his protection with ease. Jorge had started killing off the enemies down the corridor, Six and Ryner following the destruction to him. Upon entering a larger room, a small room on the opposite side of their position, which Grunts started filing out from, Jorge stopped.

"There's more. Flush 'em out, I've got you covered." the giant assured, motioning for Six and Ryner to continue as he laid down suppressing fire that obliterated the small force of Grunts. Ryner momentarily paused when he stepped over the now dead Marine's body, before continuing just as quickly.

The Elites rushed the pair, using the pillars as cover to keep them away from Jorge's turret fire. Six engaged the one who held the rifle, accidentally missing the fact that the one she'd left to Ryner carried and Energy Sword. The Zealot activated the blade, and spun to go after Six, when he was stopped.

Ryner kicked the Zealot's leg, firing his DMR as fast as he could pull the trigger. The Elite rounded on him, missing the kick and taking another shot that dropped its shield. The Energy Sword cut clean through Ryner's DMR, making two pieces of useless metal. He ducked under another swing, buck was kicked to the side by the Elite, his chestplate cracking under the Alien strength. Six was already occupied by the Elite with the Rifle, and almost didn't duck in time to get out of the way of the swing. Unfortunately, she rolled back into the Zealot who held the Concussion Rifle.

Ryner pulled his knife from his shoulder in a flash, jumped onto the Elite, and brought the blade down hard, slicing right through the Elite's neck, taking the deactivating Energy Sword as it dropped. Six was watching as the Elite roared and fire to avenge its comrade.

"Catch!" Ryner yelled, the blast landing a few feet to his right, sending him flying down the flight of stairs far off to the left. He rolled and tumbled, and hit the back of his head against the hard floor, and the next thing he knew, Six and Jorge were hovering over him. Six crouched down and held out her arm for him to grab. He rose to his feet on his own, and started walking, well, more like limping, painfully, back up the stairs. He looked back to see Jorge and Six watching him, before lifting their hands to their heads, Ryner's comms blaring a moment later.

"Noble Five reporting in, contacts neutralized." Jorge told said, walking up the stairs as well.

"Alright, how's our ODST?" Carter asked the team of three.

"Fine, sir," Ryner replied, trying to keep as much pain out of his tone as he could. Carter seemed to buy it, as he moved on immediately.

"Good. Kat needs you to reset a junction. Do that, and get back here."

Ryner cracked his left shoulder as he started for the small waypoint on his HUD, cautiously holding his Magnum up as he entered the room. He knew better than to trust a flimsy report, even if the ones reporting were Spartans, there could always be one more. After finishing up with that, he and the two Spartans headed back to Carter, Emile, and Kat, the latter of which was removing several pieces of the lower panelling, until she seemed to find the right one.

"How long?" Carter asked from behind her, leaning over her shoulder to look.

"Question of my life," Kat replied in a slightly bitter tone. "If the question is when will this station be back online, two weeks, earliest. This is plasma damage. All major uplink components are fried."

"Well, two minutes is too long-"

"-Which is why I'm splicing into the main overland bundle to get you a direct line to Colonel Holland." she interrupted. She paused to look back over to Carter for a moment. "You're in my light, Commander." Carter reeled a little bit in defense, then turned around to face Jorge.

"Find out what she knows," he ordered. Upon trying to get the girl's attention, Jorge's hand was brushed to the side, something that seemed to amuse Emile.

"What's your name? Do you live around here?" the Spartan asked, pulling his helmet off of his head. "A nevem Jorge." the girl raised her head for a moment before looking back at the floor.

"...Sara…" she said quietly. Jorge raised an eyebrow.

"Sára... szép határozott név," he murmured in a calming tone. "Your accent sounds familiar. Sopron?"

"Tengeri,"

Grimacing as he followed her line of sight to the body on the floor. "Friend of yours?"

"Father."

"Sajnálom. I'm sorry," he apologized, bowing his head. Her gaze darted straight to his.

"Why would you be?" she questioned, a bitter tone lacing her words. As Jorge began to stand, Emile turned to Ryner and Six with a light shrug.

"Big man forgets what he is sometimes," he said, noticing a moment too late that Jorge would hear him. The large armored war machine leaned in to make a menacingly deep whisper.

"She just lost her father." he told him before walking over to Carter. "She needs a full psychiatric workup."

"Yeah, _she's_ not the only one," Emile murmured, causing Jorge to turn looking like he was about to actually slam the Spartan against the wall. Carter, noticing this, stepped between the two of them.

"Lock it down, both of you!" he ordered, turning to Jorge once the conflict had ended. "Get her on her feet... the body stays here."

"Thank you, sir." Jorge replied, glaring at Emile as he walked past him. He helped Sara get on her feet as Kat tapped the top of the relay with a slight amount of glee. Carter looked back to her, and walked over as she stood up.

"Signal!" she called. "It's patchy, but it's there." Carter shrugged, shouldering his weapon and taking off his helmet as he took the small earpiece she offered him.

"I'll take it."

Leaning against a wall, Ryner pulled his knife from its sheath on his shoulder again, quickly flipping and twisting the blade in his hand like an expert. He wasn't paying any attention to what the two blue Spartans were talking about in the other room, as he didn't much care. He knew that the Covenant was on the planet, that they were going to attack and glass it, and that they were going to eradicate any and all human life they could. Just like always.

He glanced to the side to see that Six and Emile were enjoying the knife show, causing him to stop immediately. He didn't like the blank fascination their visors presented to him. Without delay, he sheathed his knife, and put his hand back on the grip of his Magnum.

"Let's go, One's speaking to Colonel Holland," Kat announced, walking past the three to catch up to Jorge. Ryner looked to Carter, who waved him to go on, before he followed the other two Spartans out. By the time he had exited the building, Emile and Kat were climbing into the Falcon with Jun, and Six, Jorge, and Sara were getting in the Falcon that still held two seats, one for him and the other for Carter.

Upon taking his seat in the aircraft, he could see Carter come out of the building placing his helmet back on. He motioned for the Falcons to take off, his boots leaving the ground a moment later. Carter was silent for a long time, only speaking again after they landed. Of course, that didn't bother Ryner as much as the golden-visored stare Six kept gracing him with the entire ride.

"Where are we going, Sir?" Ryner asked the Spartan as the team made their way to a few Warthogs, two for the team, and one for the civilian girl to be taken back to the nearest city. The Spartans, and Ryner, had to be ready at all times, and were heading to an outpost.

Ryner had to basically sit on Six's lap on the entire drive. Although it wasn't the worst possible thing in the universe, it _was_ humiliating. Not only was her armor bulky and uneven in places, making where he sat uncomfortable, but the entire time he could feel her staring at him. A few times, she even brushed the knife on his shoulder, it could've been presumably by accident, but she had also done it about twelve times in three hours.

Upon jumping out of the Warthog, Ryner realised he hadn't yet tended to the wound he'd gotten from the Sangheili at Visegrad, something he probably should have taken more notice of when it happened. He ignored it for a little while longer, something probably not in his best interest, but his decision nonetheless, until everyone was off duty.

He was to stay with Noble Team. He found that out as soon as they'd gotten inside. Apparently, the higher-ups were impressed by Ryner's skill, something that Carter didn't particularly like, but was forced to respect anyways. The team went into a room separate from the rest of the Marines, one that fit their needs specifically.

He pulled off his vambrace to inspect the wound on his forearm, finding that the flesh, while seared and burned, was still bleeding pretty badly. Upon further inspection, Ryner noticed that two of his knuckles on his other hand were also bloodied. He had at least broken one of the bones in his hand, as the one he was looking at was sticking straight through his skin. No, it wasn't broken. The bone had just popped out of place.

Six who, like the rest of Noble Team, was getting out of her armor at the time, looked over to him while the metal casing popped and screamed as the machines pulled it off of her. The helmet came off last, revealing that she had dark auburn hair that would've fallen past her shoulders, had it not been in a ponytail. She had sharp, battle-hardened eyes the same color all Spartans held. Her nose had a slight curve, as did her jaw, which also had a few scars left over them. A cross-shaped one on her right cheek, a long thin line under her left ear, and a small line from her lips to her chin. He did not like that her eyes followed him. He couldn't see it from behind the visor, but now the helmet was gone, and he could view it fully.

Kat tapped Six's shoulder, trying to get her attention, and the two started to talk about something Ryner didn't care to try to listen to. Right now, he had to fix the problems in his hands. If they were broken, he couldn't hold a weapon. He took a deep breath, and pushed the bone back into place. It was painful, nearly put him on his ass out cold, but he knew anatomy as well as he knew the basics of combat, so he knew he had put it back where it belonged. Taking another deep breath to steady himself, he glanced to Noble Team to see them glaring at him with wide eyes. He flexed his hand as best as he could, before tying a reflex bandage over it to keep the bone in place.

Getting back to the matter at hand, _'heh, good pun'_ he thought to himself, he made sure to stop the bleeding, clean and dress the wound, etcetera, etcetera, he felt as if someone were hovering over him. There weren't any shadows that he had noticed to suggest such a thing, but the feeling was there. What confirmed his suspicions was Kat's mechanic arm resting on his shoulder, which startled him, and made him flip the Spartan onto the ground with only slightly more than normal effort. She obviously thought he wasn't going to do that, as she landed on her back with the wind knocked out of her.

"Stand down!" she ordered to the approaching Carter, as Ryner realised what had just happened. He slowly got up without looking around. No one could see his expression, as he was still wearing almost all of his gear. "Blaine, remove your hands from my person." with a nod, Ryner stood up, holding out his hand for Kat. she took it, and hauled herself off the ground. He was about to turn and leave when she stopped him. "Armor off."

"Excuse me, sir?" he asked, hoping he had heard her wrong, clenching his good fist.

"You heard me, ODST. Armor. Off." she repeated. Standing as they were, Ryner would only be about one or two inches shorter than her. It was an order from a superior. He nodded, unclasping the belts that held his suit together, and letting his clothes drop until he was in nothing but the body glove. "Helmet too." with an angered, grunt, he pulled the ODST helmet off of his head, letting them see his face for the first time.

Dark brown, almost black, hair about an inch long, small chin, strong jaw, straight nose, and war-heavy blue-green eyes. He had no hair on his face. There were scars everywhere, one cutting from his hairline through his left eyebrow, one horizontally crossing the bridge of his nose, a diagonal cut on his upper left lip, and finally a large jagged scar on jaw, stretching down his neck, if they could see that far. They fixated on his eyes and scars particularly.

"Sir," he said at attention, his expression as blank as his visor.

"You're… a kid." Carter exclaimed in a surprised tone.

"You read up on me, I assumed you knew everything there was to know, Sir," he replied without a change in tone or expression. "You should know your men, and women, like the scope of your DMR." Carter shifted in his spot, either in irritation or a conflicted thought of anger. Six was the first one to talk after that.

"How old are you, then?" she asked, crossing her arms and leaning back against the wall. Ryner did not feel obligated to answer her, and just stood in silence. "I'm a lieutenant, answer the question Blaine." his face twitching for a moment, allowing only a moment of anger to seep onto his face, he looked at Six.

"Seventeen." he told them. Six's eyes narrowed, as did the rest if Noble Team's.

"Why the hell would ONI send us a kid?" Kat asked Carter, who waved her off.

"A better question: how the hell did a seventeen year old boy become a such a high rank, and an ODST?" he replied, his chin in his hand. "He's been on more solo missions than a lot of us. Killed as many, if not more, than a few Spartans that we know."

"More than four hundred confirmed human kills, sir," Ryner cut in, his stare not betraying his thoughts. "Over eight hundred Covenant, solo, no backup, no team." he hated how he was gloating about it, like it were some kind of achievement, not just because it wasn't, but also because he despised gloating more than anything. At this, Emile's eyes actually widened as he and Jun looked back at each other.

"Shit, that's a lot of kills…" he muttered. "Probably more than some Spartans out there…" Six kept staring at him, even as Kat gave out a sigh.

"He was also born on Kholo." she announced, pulling up a small touchscreen for the rest of the team to get a look at. Ryner didn't bother looking at what he didn't want to know. "He was there during the glassing, survived by some unknown means."

"By 'unknown', you mean-?" Carter began.

"I mean, nobody knows how he got off the planet. Do you even listen?" she slipped in under her breath. "Even if it was reported, it doesn't say." Jorge, the only one of them who seemed to not be paying any attention to what was going on, was suddenly part of the conversation.

"Aside from that, what qualifies him to fight with us?" the big man asked. From the small amount of time Ryner had spent with the team, he knew Jorge wasn't discriminate, especially not against soldiers. "I want to know what exactly makes him such an asset."

"You've seen him in the field, are you not impressed?" Six replied, patting Jorge's shoulder with a light smirk. "What else can you expect from just an ODST?"

"That's the thing, while I was digging, I found something," Kat intervened with a smirk. "He aced every single test they sent his way. Hand to hand, marksmanship, you name it, he passed it with flying colors." before anyone could even open their mouths to speak, Kat had started talking again. "Once, a group of insurrectionists were able to get into the academy, disguised as students who turned on the other cadets when the plan went into motion. He subdued eight of them on his own, without a weapon and without alerting any others, on his own, and only killed three of them in the process." she informed them.

"Well, at least he didn't kill them all," Emile chuckled, watching as Kat's expression shifted. "Y-you're n-not… laughing…"

"I never said the other five _lived_ , I just said he didn't kill them." she replied with a dark glare. "He tortured them relentlessly, only one of those five survived the ordeal, and had to be put in a psychiatric ward after because of it."

"Okay, they killed several of my friends." Ryner countered. "I worked hard to socialize, and they took it from me. They deserved what they got, and _I_ discovered who was on our side, and who was _not._ " he walked over to the nearest bunk, and fell into it. "Let's just drop it for now, okay? I'll tell you more tomorrow, I'm not a Spartan, I need to sleep."

"Get up, Blaine," Six ordered, just as he had closed his eyes. Ryner looked back to see her holding two knives; his and hers, with a fixed stare into his eyes. His brow furrowed, he followed his superior's command, and slowly got back onto his feet. He noticed that she was smiling slightly, and it was unsettling to him. He steadied himself with a deep breath.

"What?"

"If you can win, anything you want." she replied, throwing the knife in the air, in his direction, with a grin. "If I win, anything I want." it was only a split second after she finished her sentence that she launched at him.

It was in the blink of an eye, but even so, Ryner dodged the attack without breaking a sweat. Her next swing was aimed at his neck, which Ryner barely managed to deflect with his own weapon. Using her momentum to make her over shoot her target, Ryner elbowed her in the ribs hard. She stumbled a little bit, before rounding on him and slamming his shoulder with a roundhouse kick, making him lose feeling in the appendage. She began to swing and stab wildly, but with a pattern and rhythm, his instinct the only thing keeping him alive. As a reflexive movement, Ryner slashed Six's left obliques in an upward motion, drawing a fair bit of blood. With his mind set on the one attack, he didn't notice her fist until it had landed firmly in his temple, and put him on the ground.

Six had straddled him, pinning his arms and legs to the floor, her knife on his throat. "Do you yield?" she asked, the small gleam in her eyes fading a little. He threw his head forward, biting down on her fist, gripping the knife, and pulling it away from his throat. With a twist, his leg was free, and brought up to kick Six in the head. She, of course, anticipated and saw his movement. With another punch, Ryner couldn't move anymore, and Six was smiling like a hungry wolf. "I'll take that as a no, looks like you lose."

"What happens now?" he asked as his vision started to blacken.

"Nothing yet, but I'll let you know in due time." she answered, lifting him back onto the cot for him to rest. Before he even touched the bed, he had fallen asleep.


	2. Chapter 2: The Edge of the Sword

July 26, 2552.

Ryner had woken up hours before the other members of Noble Team, and like always, had his gear on and his weapons loaded. The wound on his arm had been fixed by the doctor in the facility, as well as his broken hand. He still couldn't fully move his ring finger, but it didn't stand out a whole lot. He heard movement and slight noises coming from the bunk next to his, meaning that Six was waking up a little earlier than usual.

She was an odd one, to him, for a Spartan. Though all Spartans woke up about two hours before dawn on their rare days off, Six woke up almost three or more. She also wasn't as uniform as she dressed. Her armor was standard, with almost no personalization, but at the same time, she had long hair that she kept in a ponytail, something that Ryner was almost certain was _not_ allowed.

Ryner was about to leave the room when he felt someone's hand close around his wrist. He looked back to see that somehow Six had gotten out of bed and over to him, almost twelve feet away, in under two seconds, making no noise at all. Standing in his armor, his boots, and helmet, he would appear taller than the super soldier.

"Where are you going?" she asked him in a hushed tone. He motioned to the door, and pulled against her tight grasp.

"For a walk, let me go," he replied, no attempt to hide the irritation in his voice. Six maintained her firm grip on his wrist, something he did not particularly like about her, and just stared into his visor.

"No, I'm coming with you," she replied in a stern tone. Ryner could feel his eye twitch as he pulled harder against her strength to get to the door. She wouldn't budge however, and he only succeeded in making himself look like an idiot. Six seemed to laugh at him, though he couldn't be sure if he had actually heard her or not. "Helmet off."

"Why the hell would I-?"

"Helmet. Off." she interrupted, tapping his visor lightly. When he didn't move to follow her orders, Six simply grabbed either side of his head, and pulled upwards. She smiled when she saw his face, though the reason why she did so was lost to him, as she gently placed the bucket on the table.

"May I go now?" he asked her, to which she nodded, following him out of the room. He walked through the small complex until he was outside, at which point he walked to the top of a large hill, and stood on the edge of a cliff.

Upon teetering only slightly as he looked down to the ground nearly a half mile down, he felt Six grab him from behind and pull him back. He struggled against her until she threw him onto the ground. When he attempted to get up, she jumped on top of him and pinned his shoulders.

"What the hell?!" he barked, trying to push her off as hard as he could. She was heavy, but was unable to completely hold out against his strength as he slowly and shakily managed to kick her to the side. "Why'd you grab me?! I could've fallen!" she looked at him slightly surprised.

"I thought you were going to jump…" she muttered, barely audible enough for him to hear. Ryner let out a small growl as he picked his DMR up off the ground.

"This thing had better not malfunction in the field," he warned, looking it over thoroughly to ensure nothing was broken, or dirty, or scratched. He found that there was a small amount of mud in the cocking mechanism, and glared at her the entire time he cleaned it off. "Why on- er, Reach,- would you think I was going to jump? I'm a soldier, I'm not suicidal." Six stood up tall, and bowed her head.

"I apologize, Blaine, it is not my place to decide another soldier's fate," she apologized without a change in her tone of voice. Ryner waved it off, giving her only a sign that meant he accepted as he looked over to the rising sun. "Blaine, we should return before the others-"

She was abruptly cut off as the alarms started blaring loudly from the base. Ryner narrowed his eyes as he watched various Marines run to the Falcons and Pelicans, grab various pieces of equipment, and load weapons into crates. Six and Ryner looked at one another briefly before they sprinted back to the Spartans' quarters and watched as the other five woke up and quickly got their armor fitted to them.

"Sir, what's happening?" Ryner asked Carter as the Blue Giant stepped out of the armor bay.

"I don't know, get your gear-" he paused as he noticed Ryner was already wearing all of his gear, with the exception of his helmet. "-Ready…" Ryner put the black helmet back on his head, and made sure it was working properly. "Alright, get into the Falcons, I'll relay orders when I receive them." Ryner nodded, attaching his DMR to his back and heading back outside to the vehicles.

When he took a step into one, he felt a hand rest on his shoulder. Instinctively, he grabbed the armored arm, and started his initial assault on them, but paused when he realised it was Six that had grabbed him. She tapped his helmet, he assumed with a smile, and climbed in, motioning for him to sit across from her. He sat down as she instructed, Kat sitting next to him within the next few seconds, just before the Falcon took off. Ryner watched closely as they gradually moved into the Ice Fields of Eposz, until he heard the comms come to life in his ears.

"Be advised, Kilo-Three-Three and Kilo-Three-Four, your current LZ is too hot." the mechanical voice of an A.I. told them. Ryner looked over to see Carter lift his hand to the side of his head.

"Roger that. Dot, standby to receive and respond." his voice could be heard through the channel. The Spartans, as well as Ryner, looked over at the Corvette as the Falcons passed a large island. He had seen these ships more than his fair share of times throughout his military campaign, but the sight still sent shivers down his spine. He let out a breath, and looked over at Kat to barely notice her hands clench tightly. He thought it was odd, but didn't think it was the time to question a Spartan.

"Yes, Commander... Coordinates received. Initiate immediate course correction." Dot's voice ordered, causing the Falcon to shift slightly. After a moment's pause, the A.I. continued its report. "The Office of Naval Intelligence Sword Base is presently under siege from a corvette-class Covenant vessel. Due to the sensitive nature of this facility, use of orbital rounds has been, for the moment, prohibited." Ryner was becoming increasingly annoyed by Dot's infrequent pauses. Finally, the A.I. finished its report. "Regrettably, my efforts to obtain relevant data on enemy forces have been unsuccessful. However, current defensive forces are insufficient. ONI has requested Team Noble's direct intervention to help secure Sword Base."

Ryner decided to ignore the rest of the conversation the team seemed to be having, and almost missed his orders when the Falcon landed. He jumped from the Falcon as Six handed him an Assault Rifle, and landed hard on his legs with a thud.

"Let's knock some heads, Lieutenant," Kat said with enthusiasm as Ryner fired his rifle in several short bursts, killing several enemies at once. "-and Blaine," she let out patronizingly. Ryner rolled his eyes behind his visor and continued up the ramp on the right, alone, to take out the white armor-clad Elite.

He took the large enemy by surprise when he rolled between his legs, and jumped on his back, stabbing him in the neck without pause. The Elite fell to the ground in a heap as Ryner continued across the bridge, unloading the next magazine completely, before he was forced to take cover by an approaching Jackal squadron.

The Marines on his left seemed confused as to why a single ODST was in combat, and not entirely behind enemy lines. He gave them the universal motion for 'suppressing fire', and then jumped over the low barrier into the hellstorm of bullets and plasma. Sliding beneath the initial fray, Ryner slipped his hand up and activated the Plasma Grenade that was on the belt of one of the Kig-Yar, and then quickly dove behind the metal supports on Sword Base's exterior, saving himself, barely, from the blast of metal and plasma that erupted moments later.

Without another thought, Ryner moved to the Sniper Rifle he could see perched on the ledge of what he assumed was the loading area, and pulled back the slide, sending another round into the chamber for immediate action. The readout on his HUD told him that he had three shots with the rifle, along with whatever was in the two magazines on the ground next to him. The technology in his VISR rendered the aim of the rifle for him, as he brought it instinctively closer to his eye, and lined up the shot. Bam. The round of the rifle dropped the golden Sangheili's shields, and then another round put the alien in the dirt for a permanent nap.

After exhaling, the ODST quickly fired the final round through the head of a Skirmisher, released the magazine, and loaded in another one. As a blue and black streak of death entered the ensuing battle below, Ryner took the next four unsuspecting targets out to clear a path for the two Spartans. As a loud thud sounded off to his left, Ryner looked to see a Plasma Grenade begin its countdown, and reflexively jumped over the wall in front of him. As the grenade went off, Ryner felt his weightless body get propelled by the blast, and landed on the concrete hard on his back, his lungs stripped of their oxygen.

As he struggled to roll onto his stomach, he noticed that his visor had a large hole in it. Then the warm familiar feeling of blood dripping down his face caught his attention, as it was oozing out of a painful cut over his right eyebrow. His HUD was nearly useless, as the flickering screen only got in the way of his vision. He pulled off his helmet as he stood up with his Assault Rifle, and ran to join the Spartans in securing the last little bit of the Courtyard.

Six and Kat shared a moment of relief before they spotted Ryner wipe the blood from his lip and upper brow. Upon noticing the ODST's injuries, Six seemed to drop her stance slightly, and Kat appeared to want to help. As Six holstered her Rifle and walked over to Ryner, Kat put her hand to her ear, all while keeping constant watch on the two members of her team.

"Noble Two to Sword Control: courtyard is clear, over," she said quickly as the gate began to open. Six touched the burning wound on Ryner's forehead, causing him to let out a small grunt of discomfort as he reeled back an inch. The three looked over at the Ordinance Containers as Ryner got to his feet. "Sword Control, I see a Target Locater. Any artillery support in the area?" Ryner couldn't hear what Sword Control responded with.

Six picked up the Target Locater as Kat and Ryner walked through the gate. A Warthog pulled around the corner briefly before it was destroyed by a large blast of Plasma. Ryner grunted as the Wraiths came into view as well. Ryner pulled his rifle to his shoulder in the classic way, and unloaded the magazine on the Elites and Grunts that stood on the battlefield, watching the bodies fall to the ground within moments of each other. The Wraiths exploded from artillery blasts at the same time.

"Outstanding!" Kat chuckled, walking over the corpses with the Marines close behind. "Pelican inbound, Six," Six nodded as the Warthog was dropped by the large aircraft. Upon attempting to enter the vehicle, Six tapped his chest.

"Stay here, you're no good to us dead." she told him in a lighter tone. He wanted to protest, but how could he? Six was an officer, he had no helmet, no head protection, and no means of communication. He gave the woman a blank nod, and watched the two Spartans disappear behind the rock formations.

"Sir?" one of the Marines asked, her voice carrying no bravery or confidence. He turned to her with a questioning look. The girl paused, whether because of his appearance, or his wounds, he did not know. "What should we do? The Covenant is bound to send more troops…" Ryner let out a sigh.

"We go and take care of the other Objective, whatever it might be," he replied in a stern tone. "Get Sword Control on the line. Ask them about Noble Team's other objective." the Marine looked confused but did as Ryner said anyways.

"They, uh, asked for-" she began, but was cut off as Ryner walked up to her and said loudly;

"ODST Ryner Blaine." he spoke into the headset that was built into the military helmet. After a moment of shaking, the girl gulped.

"There's a Communications Relay to the East that the-"

Ryner immediately took off in the direction of the relay, calling two of the ten Marines to follow him. After nearly twenty minutes of running, Ryner made them stop and go prone. He looked at the Marine on either side of him, and silently told them to advance quietly from their sides. He didn't have binoculars, but he could clearly see the enemy forces in the distance. With a small smile, he switched the safety off of his DMR, looked through the scope and drew in a deep breath. The Unggoy dropped before the bullet casing hit the dirt.

Before the Marines knew it, all hell had broken loose as the Covenant fighters realized what had just happened. Without pausing, Ryner fired again, and again, watching as each target fell to the ground as the bullets passed through their skulls. Only after all of the unshielded enemies had fallen did Ryner move from his position, and rather quickly from a military perspective.

Replacing his DMR with his Assault Rifle, Ryner fired on the Elites that remained. Irritatingly to him, the Marines had chosen not to join the ensuing battle, and instead fired their mid-range weapons from afar. Ryner shook his head in disbelief, though others might argue it was to keep himself conscious due to his head wound. He activated the necessary generator switch, and turned to face his newest opponent in close quarters.

An Elite in blue armor lunged at him, narrowly missing his throat with its extended arm. With a face that seemed to even frighten the alien monster, Ryner drew his knife and Magnum in a single motion, holding them in a cross-shaped formation, and unloading the entire twelve-round magazine into the alien's chest. Moving like lightning, Ryner dodged the Sangheili's attack with surprising speed, jumped up to meet it face to face, and then slammed the blade into the Elite's throat, and tearing the blade straight up, nearly severing the alien's bottom right mandible from its body.

He let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, and fell into the wall, barely able to hold himself up. He decided that, maybe, Six had a point making him stay at the gate. Unsurprisingly, Six just happened to jump out of the Warthog that was just outside of the building.

"Blaine?!" he heard her exclaim as the Plasma Blast from the previously unnoticed Revenant blasted apart the Warthog, and part of the wall opposite Ryner. Luckily, nothing hit him, though he was put on his stomach by the explosion. He tried to push himself off of the ground, put found himself held down by incredible weight. He would've said Six had landed on him, however if she had, he would have been crushed. He felt a pair of strong, metal encased arms grab him and haul him off the ground. "Dammit kid, what the hell are you doing here?!"

"I'm doing my job." he replied with a growl, trying to break free and stand on his own. "The communications relay is just as important as the AA gun." Six let out a groan as she looked over to the roof of the building her waypoint must've been pointing. "You two take care of that Revenant, I'll get the comms back online."

"Excuse me?" Six asked, as if he'd just questioned her authority. "You are in no condition to make that trip. You have a concussion, and you're badly hurt." he shrugged, leaning down to pick up his Magnum, which he dropped in the explosion.

"What else are we going to do Six?" he responded bitterly. "I'm just an ODST, you and Kat are Spartans, and you're the only two with even a chance in hell against one of those things!" the Spartan made to talk again, but Ryner didn't wait for her to speak. He sprinted across the open area to the next building as fast as he could, dodging the fray of Plasma as he dove into the building, rapidly firing his rifle to kill the squadron of Unggoy within.

He ran to the top of the building, activating the rest of the Communications relay, and dropping to his knees exhausted from exertion. He looked back to see Six and Kat struggling against the Revenant, whose pilot was well-guarded from the bullets being fired at it. He groaned as he struggled to stand, lost his balance, and fell from the roof onto the floor below with a thud. He managed to look into the building to a bloody corner where an M41 Rocket Launcher was leaning against the wall. He clumsily grabbed the weapon, loaded it, and aimed it at the Revenant, firing and destroying the scarlet alien vehicle and dropping the gun on the wooden floor.

He felt as though he only blinked, but when his eyes opened again, he was laying in the Warthog. It only took him a moment to realize that he was in Six's lap, again, and they were heading somewhere. He groaned as he lifted his head, which felt as if weighed down by steel, which roused the attention of the two Spartans themselves.

"Easy Blaine, you must've taken a nasty hit before we arrived." Six said, her weapon aimed ahead of the vehicle. "We're pulling back up to Sword Base. When we get there, you need to keep your head low, and stay out of the fight."

"Screw that, I'm gonna fight." he told her, trying his best to sit up in the seat. He ultimately failed, feeling much weaker than when he had run across the field earlier.

"Blaine, I'm with Six on this one- you can barely move!" Kat, who was driving, told him as they rounded a corner into a battlefield. "Keep yourself alive while we take out these Covenant bastards." when the Warthog came to an abrupt stop, the two Super Soldiers jumped from the vehicle, their weapons unleashing hell on their quarry.

"Dammit! Yzain, Move your ass!" Jason called as the ODST ran quickly across the room to get behind cover. Sword Base was absolutely overrun! The Covenant were there in full force, blasting everything apart that they could.

"What are we doing?!" Jade called, popping up for a brief moment to fire her M7 into a small force of oncoming Grunts. "We're sitting ducks down here!" the small group was _not_ supposed to even be there, they were supposed to be on another part of reach entirely.

"I've got word that a Spartan strike team is on its way to our position, we only need to hold the enemy here until-!" Jason replied, stopping when a Plasma Grenade landed a few feet away, and diving over his barrier to save himself from the blast. As the grenade went off, Jason's body was sent flying through the air and into a wall, the unexpected help of the Spartans entering the scene at the same time.

"Captain!" Chris called, moving carefully with the aid of Mary to the fallen captain's body. Jade jumped over her cover to unleash her entire M7 magazine on the oncoming Covenant forces, the Spartans helping her, if only to secure their own objectives.

"Is Captain O'Reilly alright?" Jade asked through her comm channel, crouching down behind a destroyed statue where it was safer. "West, did you hear me?!"

"He's fine, just a little shaken is all Yzain," Chris' voice replied. "He's got a couple minor burns, but he should be able to get back on his feet in a few minutes." Jade bit the inside of her cheek.

"He might not get a few minutes, the way these bastards are pressing us…" Jade said, being pushed back even further by the enemy soldiers. She was forced out of cover, and closer to her own squad. "West, pick him up and move him!"

"Yzain, he's heavy when he _isn't_ in about a hundred pounds of body armor!" Chris screamed back over the communications line. As the Jackals and Grunts began to close in on them, Jade feared it would be her end, and was about to jump up to take as many of them with her before they dropped her, when something unexpected happened.

"Down!" she heard a man with a strong-sounding voice order as three other Spartans ran into the room, firing at the Covenant enemies and killing most that did not try to get behind cover. The male of the three was stumbling around and seemed disoriented, and the two females were occupied with shooting and killing any Sangheili and/or Kig-Yar that appeared in front of them.

"Seven, help these men out down here," the teal one ordered the male. "Six and I will help deal with the Corvette." the man nodded, pulling up his DMR and firing at the enemies that were closing around the ODST team.

"I'll do my best. You two take care of it." he told them, staying behind to fight with Jade and her fellow squadmates. He was amazing in the fight, killing anything that moved anywhere relatively near him. He shot every single Grunt and Jackal in the head, and moved quickly to Jade's side.

"Our Captain is injured, we need to move him." she told the man as he stared intensely into the crowd. He nodded.

"Drag him up the stairs and into the next room over. Six will have cleared it by now." he ordered the young ODST, who complied and did as he told with extreme haste. She, like most of her other squadmates, did not particularly like the Spartans. However, even she had to admit they were handy in a fight.

Once Jason was moved to the room and slumped up against the sleek walls the team could get to work. They pulled off the young Captain's helmet, revealing his dark buzz cut hair and burn wounds, as well as a few lacerations across his strong features. Chris slapped him a few times to keep him alert, and checked his vitals.

"Yzain, he'll be fine," he told the ODST, then gasped. "Or not, his vitals are steadily dropping. We need to get him to a medical station, and soon!" Jade looked to her map of the facility, and found one two floors up- exactly where the Corvette was stationed above Sword Base. Chris must've checked his map as well, because before she could even speak, he had started swearing.

"Get his left, I'll get his right." Jade told the ODST, who promptly grabbed the captain's left arm and hauled him up. She looked to Martin Cole, her significant other, and motioned for him to cover their ascent to the infirmary. He gave her a nod, and lifted his DMR to his shoulder, Mary at his side with her muzzle pointed in to the opposite side of the corridor.

"Cole, what do you see?" Mary asked, her voice sounding a little shaken. "Anything on your Tracker?" Martin paused for a moment, looking back at her. Without an answer, he crossed over to her side of the corridor, his weapon pointed straight at something only he had seen. "Didn't think so, move!" Just as Mary and Martin let loose a barrage of bullets from their SMGs, two Elites shimmered into view, Energy Sword raised.

"Move move!" the two called, ducking under a swing from one of them, diverting with Jade and the other two into a narrow hallway, which turned into another open area a floor up. The Elites had chased them, though at one point, they'd lost one of them who either activated its Camo, or left to fight other soldiers.

"We won't be able to get him there! We'll die for no reason if we don't get rid of them!" Jade yelled back at Martin as they closed in on the medical bay.

"I know!" he barked back at her as he and Mary killed the first Elite, and began firing at the second one, who's shields had regenerated. "This bastard won't go down!" Just before Martin could be impaled by the Sangheili's blade, the Spartan from before appeared and slammed a knife into the alien's neck.

"Keep on your guards!" he ordered of the ODSTs, who expressed through their comms just how irritated they were by his presence. They did not like Spartans, not one of them. "You wanted to save your captain, but almost got every single one of you killed! Make sure nothing's following you!" without another glance at the ODST team, the Spartan opened the door to the infirmary, and entered. He went over to a container himself, and tended to his wounds without removing his armor.

Jade noticed that he was too short to be a Spartan, and it seemed she was the only one. The man was taller than her considerably, he was taller than all of the ODSTs in her Fireteam, but only by a few inches. She also took into note that he wasn't wearing armor like the other Super Soldiers; he was wearing standard ODST armor, like them. The only thing that was mismatched or different was his helmet, which was silver in contrast to the rest of his armor.

"How's O'Reilly doing?" Jade asked, reloading her weapon and watching the door. Martin joined her a moment later with an Assault Rifle as well as a Shotgun, which he gave to her.

"He'll be fine. A bit of shrapnel cracked one of his ribs, he couldn't breath too well." he told her, looking around the corners of the entrance. "We should stay here, keep him protected." Jade shook her head.

"No, I'm going with the 'Spartan'." she told him as the man seemed to finish his preparation. She couldn't see Martin's expression, but she knew he was giving her an annoyed glare. "Look, yes I'd like to stay here, but I want to take out the enemy forces attacking this place. That Spartan from before said something about a Corvette, of course we had heard about this before, but now it's confirmed. They're going to need help with destroying those Covenant Dropships."

The man walked out of the room holding his DMR at the ready just in case another enemy appeared. Jade quickly ran after him, covering his six as they moved through the complex. After several minutes of this, the man let out a groan, and turned to look at her.

"What are you doing?" he asked her, dropping his guard.

"Following you, of course. I want to help take out Covenant." she replied, knowing how childish she sounded, almost like a rookie. He tilted his head upwards, signaling her to watch as the Spartan team ran across the highest ramp. "We're going up there?" without answering her, he ran up the stairs and around the corner. She followed close behind him, crossing the bridge the same time he had.

"I told you to _stay back_!" the Dark armored Spartan yelled at him when the two got near. An Elite in golden armor jumped out from the hallway and began blasting the UNSC forces with a Concussion Rifle, taking out several of the Marines that had been with the Spartan beforehand. Jade rolled below one of the blasts, taking cover at the wall as the Spartans ran straight towards it instead, dodging the shots as they got closer to their target. The two unleashed hell on the bastard with their guns until it's shields dropped, and Jade was able to pop a quick headshot to finish it off.

"I said I was fine," he replied, reloading his weapon. "I wasn't going to sit there and babysit a group of ODSTs when my team was in trouble. Now, I believe we have a job to do?" The woman seemed to just glare at him through her visor. He put his hand to his head, and motioned for Jade to follow them. "Looks like we've got some Banshees to take out."

"What support do we have?" Jade asked, though the two seemed to be ignoring her entirely. The man fluidly crouched down and grabbed a SPNKr before running to the hole ahead of them. Jade grabbed one of the heavy weapons, and the woman did as well, though with less effort. The Rocket Launcher locked onto the Phantoms and Banshees, and the Soldiers fired their heavy weapons relentlessly on them.

The Corvette had soon come into view through the clouds, momentarily distracting Jade as two Longswords flew towards the massive ship. They tailed the alien vehicle for several seconds before breaking off, a sudden beam of light slamming into the top and going all the way through. The Corvette had been hit with a MAC round. It flickered for a few moments before crashing into the ground.

"Beautiful, ain't it?" a sudden deep voice from behind her made her jump. She turned around to see a massive suit of armor approach her position. "Someone should take a picture." he looked at the Spartan and the man with her. "Nice work, by the way." after a few moments of silence, the Spartan put his hand to his head. "Repeat? Sounded like you said 'Halsey'." he nodded after another moment. "Copy that, on our way." he looked at the Spartan and seemed to chuckle. "Don't need command to tell me; been all hers half me life."

"Where are we going?" the man asked the two Spartans as they walked out away. He never got an answer the entire way Jade followed them until she needed to split off and walk back to the infirmary.

"Jesus, there you are!" Martin's voice announced as the doors opened and the ODST pulled her into a tight embrace. "Fuck, don't ever do that to me again!" Jade laughed, tapping the side of Martin's helmet. She could imagine the expression on his face even though his visor was lit.

"I told you I was going, and you decided not to come with me. It's fine, Martin, I'm alright." she laughed, as his embrace lessened enough for her to take a step back. "How's O'Reilly doing?"

"I'm fine, Yzain," Jason's voice rasped from a few meters back. He rose off of the bed slowly, wincing in pain as he stood up. "Where did you run off to?"

"Helped a group of Spartans hold off Covenant ships while command fired a MAC round through a Corvette." she replied with a shrug, pulling off her helmet. "It was actually quite fun, if I do say so myself."

Jade knew all of them before she was a soldier, with exception of Jason, who had been an ODST for about seven years more than her. Mary was Martin's little sister, who Jade went to Highschool with. And Christopher, or Chris, was their friend from school as well. The only person from their team who wasn't there was Jason's brother Clark, who had been in an accident a few weeks prior during an insurrection assault.

"What do you mean 'it was fun'?" Mary asked her with a quirked dark eyebrow.

"I got to fire a Rocket Launcher at enemy ships for ten minutes, how else can you describe that?" she replied as she set down her Rifle. "Anyways, if you guys were too busy to notice, that guy was actually an ODST like us." Martin removed his helmet as well, revealing his blond head and strong features that Jade found herself attracted to as much as his personality.

"Really? An ODST?" he inquired, suspicious of her claim. "You're not just joking around, right?" Jade shook her head.

"He may have been tall, but he was wearing ODST armor, not Spartan Armor." she confirmed with a smile. "You guys are supposed to be observant of everything on the battlefield, yet here I am noticing something so obvious." she laughed to herself for a few minutes, before they were given a call by ONI, and had orders to pull out and prepare for the next drop.


	3. Chapter 3: A Day of War

August 11, 2552

26:30 hours.

Six grumbled when the rocks beneath her almost gave out. Jun had gone before her, taking care to be sure the Phantom hadn't spotted them when it passed over earlier. Jun was waiting for her when she finally got onto solid and wide ground.

"Recon Team Bravo reporting: Three and Six in position. It's starting to get crowded up here, Kat." Jun reported, his irritation obvious in his voice. The comms flared for a moment before another voice was heard.

"Then we're closing in." she said, pausing for a moment. "Report any Covenant structures or devices. Direct action may be necessary." Jun nodded, and dug around his vanity for a moment.

"Copy that," he chuckled, turning back to Six. "When Kat runs an op, direct action is _always_ necessary." he held out his hand, which contained a few magazines of Sniper rounds. "Here. You may need these. High-velocity, armor-piercing."

"I'm gonna guess they aren't cheap, then," Six sighed, slapping the magazine into her Rifle. Jun walked over to a boulder and climbed it as Six went to the edge of a slope.

"I'll be in touch." he said as Six nodded and jumped down.

"Recon Bravo, the sector ahead is dark to electronic surveillance." Kat's voice sounded as Six's boots hit the ground with a thud. Jun was on a moment later.

"Covenant can block our instruments?" he asked her, as Six continued to wish they would both just shut up.

"So it would seem, and Command wants to know what they're hiding." she told him. Six, no longer able to contain herself, opened the channel.

"Not to be rude, but if Command _didn't_ want to know what they were hiding, why else would we be here?" she asked Kat, which made the Spartan pause. "Just be quiet; it's hard to concentrate while and remain undetected with you two telling me something we already know!" Six heard Kat huff before the comms cut out. Jun was silent also.

"Oh dear, you really pissed her off, Six…" He said after a moment. Six scoffed as she approached an Elite who had its back turned. She put the Rifle on her back, drew her knife, ran up to the enemy, and slammed it hard and fast through the Elite's spine. It fell to the ground without a sound. "Not bad." she heard as she killed the Grunts that slept nearby.

The two Spartans continued with Jun up a hill, to a vantage point where they could overlook a complex that the Covenant occupied. Before Jun could start talking to Kat again, Six took aim on the first Elite, and fired. Her shot rang out like lightning, dropping the blue armored alien immediately. Without pausing, Six unleashed the rest of her bullets, each one a headshot, on each of the remaining Elites, killing them as quickly as she was able.

"Not my fault; she wouldn't shut up." Six replied after the last Elite fell. She reloaded as a Phantom appeared from behind the mountain.

"Incoming. Looks like we really pissed them off." Jun observed as Six ran down the hill, firing without aiming at her targets, hitting them anyways. She ducked behind cover as the first retaliation from the Covenant finally let loose. A plasma blast went over her head to the left, to which, in response, she pulled out her Magnum and fired back rapidly.

"I'm hoping so." she smiled, vaulting the concrete barrier into the open, firing two Magnum magazines so quickly someone would think it was an SMG she held. Within a few minutes, she and Jun had cleared the area of Covenant. They moved through the rest of the complex, killing more alien soldiers, and stepped out on a back trail, which they began to follow.

"What do you think of the ODST?" he asked her after there had been a few minutes of uncomfortable silence. Six shrugged.

"He's an adequate addition to our group, for an ODST," she lied, her tone even so she wouldn't rouse Jun's suspicion. She found his skill and willpower admirable, formidable, even a little bit interesting. She thought he was a fun addition to the team, that he was like her in a sense that made them closer than the rest of the team. From what she'd read about him, he was a Lone Wolf type; he never worked with a team. Every team he had ever worked with had died on the mission, just like it was with her. "To say anything other than that would be a little too polite."

"His skill is undeniable, even though he wasn't trained like we were." Jun commented, putting his rifle on his back as they turned the corner to see large creatures battling a group of Grunts and Jackals. "I'm sure you've seen more than I, you two seem to operate the same way. You two are also paired together more often than anyone else." he took a moment to assess the situation before he put his hand to his head. "Kat, what are those things?"

"It's an indigenous creature, called Gúta," Kat's reply came as the two Spartans snuck around them without them noticing. Six and Jun came upon another trail, and continued quickly down it a small ways to distance themselves from the Gúta. Just when the two thought they could relax for a moment, gunfire rang out through the canyon.

"Gunfire…" Jun said in an almost questioning voice. "Magnums, security side-arms. Standard issue." Six was impressed that he was able to tell what the sounds were from the reverberating sounds on the trail. "Let's go." After running for several minutes, the trail opened up for the Spartans, revealing a full-on battle between the Covenant and some humans.

"Is this a pumping station?" Six asked, firing her first round through the head of an unsuspecting Elite. Jun looked at her for a moment before joining.

"Noble Two, I got eyes on civilians, I'm thinking more local militia, they've engaged hostiles." He reported with a slightly disappointed tone to his voice.

"Copy, assist them," she replied. "They may have intel we need." Six rolled her eyes when she heard what Kat had said, as that was her plan regardless.

"You heard her Six-"

"Yes, I heard." Six interrupted coolly, jumping down the cliffside. Without pausing to listen to anything anyone was telling her, she ferociously tore apart the aliens with both bullets and her bare hands. It wasn't long before she had run out of ammunition for her Magnum, and ended up having to switch for a Plasma Repeater to continue ripping the enemy to pieces. It was only after the weapon's battery ran out that she fired one last Sniper round through the head of a Grunt, killing their last enemy. She walked back over to Jun, who had walked over to a pair of crates with the men they had defended.

""Little more action than we're used to." one of them said, looking between the two armored fighters. "You Spartans are good in a fight."

"What are you doing here? Whole area's supposed to be evacuated." Jun said, inspecting one of the crates. The people shrugged.

""Didn't like leaving it to someone else to protect our home." one replied, his tone noticeably angrier. "So we came back, for this. We have 'em hidden all over the territory." the cases opened automatically, revealing a pair of DMRs, an Assault Rifle, a Rocket Launcher, and two Mjolnir equipment modules.

"You know this stuff is stolen?" Jun inquired, in a somewhat amused tone. The man shifted in place.

"What? You gonna arrest me?" he asked taking one of the Marksman Rifles for himself. Jun took one of the armor equips for himself, along with some of the Sniper rounds that had been in the crates.

"No. Gonna steal it back." he said, firing a shot through an Elite Major's head as it jumped out of a previously unheard Phantom.

After a few more hours of fighting through wave after wave of Covenant, and taking out a Pylon, which was the source of the Dark Zone, Jun and Six moved further behind enemy lines. They'd managed to get through Shade Turrets, hordes of Covenant Infantry, and even the odd Hunter or two. Six dropped her Rifle when Jun went prone, and the two crawled to the edge of a cliff, where they could see a massive Covenant Structure.

"Jackpot." Jun's voice sounded, it was choked and halted. Six couldn't blame him, she had seen similar things like this. She had given the same report a dozen times over.

"Transmitting visual." she radioed in, waiting for Kat to speak.

"You seeing this, Kat?" Jun asked, his voice shaken and rushed. He obviously wanted to leave as quickly as possible.

"Confirmed. Receiving Noble Three and Noble Six's live visual of a Covenant strike force." Six heard Kat reply in a hollow voice. Jun slammed his fist against the ground.

"That's no strike force, it's an invading army!" he barked at her, looking at Six for some sort of help. "If we're gonna smother this thing, we need to go in hard and fast." Kat sighed without replying to Jun for several seconds.

"All recon teams disengage and fall back. Sun will be up in a few hours… It's going to be a very busy day." she finally ordered, allowing the pair of Spartans to retreat to a landing zone, where a Falcon was awaiting them. They climbed into the aircraft and took off without anyone aside from the pilots within.

"You didn't have to shoot that civilian, Six," Jun said as they flew away from the enemy lines. "He might have survived the trip."

"He was torn pretty much in half." she replied blankly. "It was easier to put him out of his misery than waste valuable medical supplies on someone with only a three-point-four-five percent chance of survival." Jun took off his helmet, resting his head against his closed fist.

"You're overly logical." he told her with a sigh. "Where did you even pull that number from in the first place? You don't have an AI assisting you with it, so how do you know?"

"I've seen that injury several times before. It always ended the same." she explained, pulling out her knife from habit, and twirling it between her fingers. "I wasn't about to let Reach's medical supplies go to waste on a man doomed to die regardless." Six then leaned back in her seat, letting out a small sigh of relief. "I'm going to get some sleep. If Kat's not bluffing, when the sun comes up, we'll be moving on the enemy lines."

Jun woke Six up by tapping her shoulder only two hours after she had fallen asleep. She knew that the moment she had awoken, she was getting ready to go into combat. She stepped out of the Falcon, leaving her weapons inside, and followed Jun to the building that the rest of Noble Team would be getting ready from, aside from Ryner, who would already be awake and alert.

The young man already had his helmet on, and seemed to be maintaining a set of weapons; primarily a DMR, but also an SMG and a Magnum. He strapped the silenced weapons to his hips, and the DMR to his back as Six passed him. She stopped for a moment, but not long enough for anyone to notice, to watch him. To her, he was not cleaning and maintaining a weapon; he was fine-tuning a work of art.

"Six," he greeted, taking his Magnum and ensuring there was a bullet in the chamber. He then went through the other two weapons and did the same thing. "I take it the recon mission was successful?" Six nodded. "Then you should go inside; Carter and Kat will brief you on the assault." he then picked up an M319 IGL and handed it to her. "You might want one of these."

"Thank you." Six replied, taking the weapon from the ODST. "You sure you don't want this?"

"I'll be fine with what I have, trust me." he said, heading over to a Warthog. "I'll be with you for the first part of the battle, but after that I'll be splitting off to help out another group." Six took off her helmet and gave him a questioning look. "What?"

"Helmet off." she replied, watching as Ryner sighed and did as she said. "What do you mean when you say 'the first part'?"

"I'll be in the Warthog with you and Kat," he explained, allowing her to see and read his expression. "But I won't be with you and her after that; I'll be mainly helping Marines on the battlefield." Six nodded, understanding as she herself had done the exact same thing several times in her career.

That was the last thing Six remembered before waking up from the Warthog crash. Her ears were ringing, and her balance was thrown out the door as she stumbled over to the wreck of the vehicle and picked up the Grenade Launcher. Kat had called out to her, and she'd somehow heard it despite the fact that she couldn't even hear her own thoughts.

"On my way!" she called out, subconsciously looking for Ryner as she got closer to the teal-armored Spartan. Two Banshees flew overhead, blowing up another Warthog that had made it over the gap. She fired a grenade up the hill at a large gathering of Grunts and Jackals, then continued moving up to Kat. "Where's Blaine?!" Kat's helmet moved up and down very subtly, indicating that she was talking. "W-what?! I can't hear you!" Kat knocked the side of Six's helmet, which didn't change anything. She pointed over to a rock, where Six could see Ryner firing shots rapidly from his DMR.

Her ears had finally stopped ringing after the three had moved up to the Shade Turrets, and took them out. She could hear everything that was going on in the battle, which was a definite improvement to being deaf. A Pelican dropped a Rocket Hog for them after the last of the enemies had been taken out, Ryner hopping into the driver seat, and Six on the turret with Kat in the passenger seat.

"Be advised; ONI has identified two AA Guns to the southwest," Carter informed the group.

"Copy Commander," Ryner said as the Warthog began speeding along.

"Blaine, get us to those guns, Six, cover the vehicle as we move." Kat ordered. After driving for a little while, the squad pulled up to the first AA Gun. A Fuel Rod slammed into the side of the vehicle, throwing them out of control until Ryner was able to pull them back.

"Two Lima Four to Noble One, those guns are pounding us with high-velocity plasma shells!" the comms suddenly flared.

"That would make a strike from the Grafton out of the question." Dot's voice came through, interrupting the Marine call.

"Alright Noble, those guns are top priority." Carter cut in. "Our birds are useless until you get rid of them." Ryner drifted the Warthog into a seventy degree turn, then floored it. The vehicle jumped in response, slammed through the enemy barriers, and went into the bottom half of the turret. Without jumping out, Ryner threw a pair of Grenades into the main power supply, then drove out of the structure without slowing or stopping.

"Now to the next gun." the ODST said in a focused and dark tone. Ryner's actions impressed Six, as he had accomplished feats she had never seen another human being do before. His tone of confidence momentarily paralyzed her. It wasn't very long, but it was long enough that the concussion blast from a Wraith managed to badly damage the Rocket Launcher and Warthog.

The vehicle came to an abrupt stop, with Ryner jumping out quickly to engage the enemy soldiers in close-quarters combat. He had pulled the SMG and Magnum from his hips and was dual-wielding them effectively, quickly carving his way through them to the last gun. Six and Kat soon joined him, though they had gone towards the Wraith rather than the gun. After Six and Kat destroyed the Wraith, the second gun went up in flames. The two Spartans were astonished at the ODST's ingenuity and skill.

"Two Lima Four, permission to commence bombing runs, over." several UNSC ships flew over the canyon, destroying three Scarabs as well as killing massive amounts of Covenant Infantry. A Pelican under fire quickly dropped a portable bridge for the land forces to use to cross the already destroyed bridge.

After destroying another gun, and a battery, Six and Ryner got picked up by a Falcon that held Jorge already. This was probably where Ryner was supposed to split off from the group, however he did not. He just reloaded his weapons as Carter explained that he would be accompanying the two to one of the Spires. The three fired continuously into the canyon, killing almost every enemy they came across, until they came upon the shielded Spire.

The Falcon shut down as it passed through the shields, plummeting towards the ground with increasing velocity. Ryner strapped himself calmly into one of the seats, and placed his weapons into their respective places to keep them safe during the inevitable crash.

"We're going down!" the pilot screamed from the cockpit.

"Lock your armor Spartan!" Jorge ordered Six, who was preoccupied with Ryner's safety at the time. Instead of doing what the behemoth said, Six went over to Ryner to try and help him. Before she could suggest anything or help in any way, the Falcon crashed into the ground, and Six was thrown from the vehicle a short distance.

Six shook herself awake, and picked up the nearby Rifle that had also been thrown from the Falcon. Jorge was throwing equipment from the destroyed vehicle, then paused for a moment and pulled Ryner out of the wreck as well. His helmet had been thrown off and destroyed, it was crushed by their feet.

"The crew's dead, we need to get moving." he told the two of them, putting an SMG back in Ryner's hands. "Can you still walk?" Ryner nodded, though Six could tell it was pained and fatigued. "Good. You two are going to the top of that thing. I'll hold them off down here."

Six and Ryner quickly moved to the base of the Spire, killed most of the enemies that came their way, and then jumped into the Grav Lift. Ryner lost his balance when the two were thrown from the lift, and was almost killed by an Elite as it ran into the room with an Energy Sword. Six pulled out her knife, slashed the Elite's throat, and took its weapon for herself. Six pulled Ryner to his feet, and handed him her Rifle.

"Come on, let's get those shields down." Six said as they moved through the complex to a green-lit console.

"Six, we're en-route to your position. Just take out those shields, and we can go home." Carter called in.

"Whenever you're ready, Six." Jorge laughed.

Six powered down the Shield, then ran with Ryner back towards the end of the Spire they had originally come from. The Falcon came up from below, presumably after picking up Jorge, and hovered there waiting. Six sprinted, dropping her Jet Pack, and jumped far, nearly missing the Falcon but being saved at the last moment by Jorge's outstretched hand.

"Hurry up, Blaine!" Carter called out. Six rounded, seeing the ODST pick up her equipment, but fall off of the Spire. She didn't see the pack roar to life, and jumped out of the Falcon with another Jet Pack to rescue him.

"Come on, grab on!" she barked at the falling ODST. She activated her Jets as his fingers closed around her wrist, and the two were pulled up. They wouldn't be able to escape, they knew this, but they were saved by the Falcon swooping near enough that Six was able to grab on. The Falcon burst away from the Spire at top-speed as the UNSC Grafton appeared and began to charge up its cannon. The Spire exploded as the MAC round hit it, leaving each of the members of Noble team satisfied.

"Don't get too happy…" Ryner's voice came from below her. She looked down confused at his saddened and defeated face. A purple glow refracted itself through his eyes, making Six look up in time to see the front chunk of the Grafton explode and plummet into the ground.

"N-no… NO!" Jorge yelled, dropping his weapon and helmet onto the floor of the Falcon. "Someone tell me this ain't happening!"

"UNSC Grafton, do you copy?!"

"Grafton is dust! We need to get out of here, _now_!" Carter barked, his intimidating voice full of anger and fear. "Move pilot!" Six and Ryner were pulled into the Falcon, watching as the Covenant Supercarrier hovered overhead, remaining passive as the Spartans escaped.

The team sat in silence for the nearly two and a half hour ride back to the outpost. No one even attempted to speak with one another, no one even looked at each other. Save for Six. She had noticed what Ryner had said moments before the Grafton was, for lack of a better term, obliterated. She didn't bring it up, but she couldn't stop thinking about how he could have possibly known about that massive Covenant ship.

When the bird landed, Six noticed Ryner get off without taking any of his weapons with him, which seemed to strike Jorge and Carter as odd as well. The behemoth nudged her, still looking in the direction of the ODST. He didn't even have to speak for Six to know exactly what he wanted her to do. Six pulled her helmet off, finding that her grown-out hair had come undone, and draped over one of her eyes.

"Blaine!" She called as she ran up to him pulling off his ODST armor angrily.

"Lieutenant?" he responded in a cold voice, barely even glancing in her direction. "Do you need something? I'm sure Kat could help better than I could."

"How did you know about the Supercarrier?" she asked as he finished taking the last of his heavy equipment off. He looked at her with a raised brow. "You said something, just before the Corvette fired on us, how did you know it was there?" Ryner tensed noticeably as his fingers curled on the desk, and his teeth were drawn like that of a wild predator. When he spoke, it was in a low growl.

"Because I remember the glassing of my home planet." was his answer. Six's eyes widened, as though she had read his file, and therefore knew most of what was relevant about him, there was nothing about where he was born, or his life prior to training. "Kholo. Not many people know this, but the Supercarrier that destroyed my home did so in a similar manner. The battle only lasted two days; and I was left alone on the planet as a four year old, but I can remember it."

"What does this have to do with-?"

"Because, just as we thought we were getting a victory, the Covenant did the same thing as they did here. The same thing they've done to all of our other colonies." he explained, leaving her in the dark as to how he knew this. For once, Six feared to ask a question of another person because his past sounded dangerously similar to her own. Ryner went over to the bunk he had claimed as his own, and slumped down in it. "I'm tired. I'm going to bed."

"I'll join you." Six murmured, walking over to the armor station to have her Mjolnir armor removed. Once her armor was removed, she went to the bunk across from his and sit down on it. "I'm sorry. From what I've heard, something similar happened to me." Ryner just turned onto his side. "For what it's worth, I find my past has made me who I am. It may have made you the fighter you are today."

"My aunt and my resolve made me the fighter I am today." Ryner replied bitterly. Six got out of her bed and kicked Ryner's leg.

"I said it 'may have' I never said 'it certainly did'." she remarked when Ryner shot up with a look of anger. "Regardless, it's better to open up about things like this. If it weren't classified, I'd tell you about my past, if you asked."

"I already know the story of you Spartans." he told her with a shrug. "I may not know your personal background, but I _do_ know what all Spartans go through in the program. My aunt told me a lot about it." Six looked at him suspiciously.

"What did she tell you?" Six asked, more curious to add to her own knowledge rather than actually gaining an answer. Ryner's head tilted to one side. "I want to know what you know."

"I know that they erased your names when you were taken into the SPARTAN THREE program," he explained without a shift in tone in his voice. "Yes, I know about the different SPARTAN programs. You were given a number based on your company, mass produced to help quell insurrection, but also aid in the defeat of the Covenant." before Six could ask anything, Ryner continued. "You have a callsign as a last name -to be honest, I'm curious what your first name is- and you signed your lives away to get vengeance on the Covenant for killing your families. You signed on for brutal training that most children wouldn't be able to survive." Six just stared.

"Who the hell was your aunt to be able to know classified information like this?" Six inquired, having known this information was not for the ears of anyone outside of the SPARTAN program.

"She was Lily-Eleven, a Spartan." he sighed in reply, the rest of Noble Team entering the room after he had revealed this fact. "She trained me to fight. My entire life, that's all I can remember doing, is combat training. I can't even remember who my parents were, or what they looked like." Six thought for a moment. Her name was the only one that no one knew. It was blacked out in her personnel file, everyone either called her 'Lone Wolf', 'Operative', or, more recently, 'Six'. There was Carter, Emile, Jun, Catherine, Jorge, Ryner, and her.

"My name is…" her voice barely registered in her own ears, as she had not spoken her own name for several years; had not even heard it for almost as long. "Jane." each of the Spartans seemed to reel, as they had not noticed she was speaking until her name had passed through her lips. "Jane- B Three-Twelve." the room was silent. "It's been awhile since I heard that name…" Carter looked between the ODST and Six.

"Get some rest Noble, we don't know when our next set of orders will come in." he told them as he got his armor off himself.

August 13, 2552

Ryner woke up later in the night and silently got out of bed, slipping outside silently with his sidearm to avoid waking the Spartans as they rested. He figured that they would all need as much sleep as anyone to keep themselves in perfect condition. He of course knew that at least one or two of them would've heard him get out of bed.

He looked down at the ground with his brow furrowed, and thought about the Supercarrier that had destroyed the Grafton earlier that day. His fingers twitched violently and his eyes darted from side to side, as if he were looking at something only he could see. In a way he was, as he was forming the image in his mind and was actually looking at that rather than the cold and dimly lit sand. His mind was almost completely fixated on the day his parents were killed in a Covenant invasion until he felt someone tap his shoulder. On instinct, he rounded with his gun raised, even though he knew Six was the one who had tapped him. She instantly disarmed him without much effort.

"What are you doing up?" she asked him one brow slightly higher than the other. Ryner shrugged.

"I'm just thinking." he replied, though he had actually woke up because of his memories of Kholo's destruction. He tried to think of a better excuse to give her, because she seemed a little suspicious already. "I'm serious. That's all; I'm thinking about my past."

"Alright, take a seat." Six replied. "Tell me about your past. How did you grow up?" Ryner thought hard.

"My mother and father… two brothers… and I think, a sister?" he murmured. Six's brow furrowed and her lips seemed to pout. "I can't remember, okay? I just remember-" he paused again, taking another moment to think. "Combat. That's all; combat." his mind suddenly jarred back to the red-hot skies. "Blood. Gunfire. Combat."

"That isn't very helpful you know, Blaine." she informed him neutrally.

"Look, I took a nasty hit to the head- and rest of my body- as a fourteen year old. I can barely remember anything before waking up in the hospital a week after." he defended in a higher tone than usual. "My aunt, like I mentioned before, trained me as hard as she could. She pushed my body to its limits, and beyond. By the time I was ten, shooting any weapon of the UNSC standard was second-nature to me. I could field strip a weapon to its nuts and bolts, and put it back together exactly how it had been. I don't remember this, but I feel it. It's instinct to me now." he knew Six would understand what he meant. She had gone through the same type of training as him. Though her training would've involved actual combat, whereas his was simulated.

"What happened to your family that you can't remember, then?"

"They were killed, I remember that much. I watched it happen, I remember my mother's lifeless eyes, but I can't remember what she looked like, or what anyone looked like." he shrugged, though he was extremely agitated. "My aunt decided that was for the best, as she had no idea what my parents looked like either. She says I remind her of my mother, though I don't know why. What about you?"

"I mean, my life was pretty similar to yours, though it was around ten years prior." she shrugged nonchalantly. "I can remember it all though. I was able to learn several languages, including Sangheili as well." Ryner actually groaned.

"You had to learn Sangheili too?" he asked, remembering everything about their culture he had been able to pick up. It made his brain hurt, which made him decide to leave it in the back of his mind. "That was a pain…" Six nodded. "A lot of those words were impossible to pronounce for the longest time. That stupid word that supposedly meant 'palace' was total bull." Six actually laughed at what he said, though he didn't think he had made a joke.

"Damn, you wake up early don't you?" she sighed, rubbing her eyes which were somewhat bloodshot. Ryner nodded. He couldn't ever sleep, after all, and when he could, the nightmare of his past would return without his permission. She shook his shoulder with a small smile. "I actually like that about you, kid. You can't sit still for too long." he was silent for several seconds.

"I like to keep moving. I hate being useless." he muttered. Six laughed at that as well.

"That would explain what happened at Sword Base." she smiled. "I thought you were trying to prove yourself as an old ODST/Spartan grudge. Trying to say you were better than we were." he looked confused. "I can see that it wasn't competitive pride, but pride in and of itself. You are already as good of a shot as I am, and you're much better at Martial Arts and close quarters than most of us, respectively, of course." he didn't take her compliments to heart; he'd heard them from soldiers his entire career. "But you're exceptionally strong, fast, and intelligent, which makes you a better soldier than almost any officer I've dealt with. That's taking into account your age and experience as well." he had actually not heard that one before.

"I'm not that good. I'll take credit where credit is due, but I'm not _all_ that." he said, trying to keep himself from sounding arrogant and cocky. Six laughed a little bit.

"I read up on you, remember. You once took off your helmet during training to 'make the game an actual challenge', which is an actual quote from you to the Academy's General." she said to him, appearing extremely impressed by his stupidity and arrogant action. "Though you did get tagged once or twice during the fight, you managed to complete the objective on your own. Which brings me to my next question;"

"Go ahead, Lieutenant-"

"Jane." she interrupted. "Why were you not part of a team?" Ryner really hated this question, no matter who asked, no matter why they asked it, he hated it. He wanted to remain silent, but he knew she would just order him to tell her. Though, it was personal, and he could refuse, their deal still stood. He still had to do anything she wanted.

"To be honest, and don't think less of me for what I'm about to say," he started, his shoulders dropping to give him a more saddened and casual posture. "A team would just slow me down. The attachment to them, knowing that these people are my friends, that they could die at any given moment, makes me sick to my stomach." her posture seemed to slacken.

"You're afraid, then?" she asked suddenly, jarring his brain to wonder how she'd gotten that from what he'd said. "You don't want to rely on people to keep you safe, or have to worry for their safety? You're scared?" he wouldn't have exactly said that, but there was no word in the english language for 'I don't want to deal with any more PTSD, or the deaths of close friends' so he just decided to nod.

"I don't like teams. The last one I was on was obliterated, I was the only one who made it." he explained, trying to think of what else he could say to make it more clear. "I guess it's more like I don't want to be anywhere near a team of soldiers. I work better alone, and everyone else is just a hinderance."

"That's an awfully cocky way of phrasing that, Blaine," she replied, leaning on his shoulder with a yawn. He was going to ask her what she was doing, but she closed his mouth with a finger. "Shh… You wake up too earlier for someone who just spent twelve hours in a firefight, I gotta rest a little bit." Ryner sighed, sitting down, leaning back and bracing himself with his arms to ensure she wouldn't fall off and hurt herself.

"You could just go back to bed, you know." he said, a little bit of agitation in his voice, as Six weighed at least two hundred pounds out of her armor. She nodded in response, but said nothing. "So why are you leaning on me instead?"

"If I go back to bed now, I'm not going to wake up until later in the day. It's a problem I've had my entire life." she explained in a voice barely above a whisper.

'It's not the only problem you have…' he thought to himself, looking as far as he possibly could into the distance. After almost an hour, Six had either fallen asleep or just had her eyes closed, he couldn't tell. Her breathing was even, which made him believe that she was asleep, but at this point, like him, she was probably an expert at faking her heart rate and breathing. He poked her face until she opened her eyes and sat back up with an annoyed look.

"The sun's up." she yawned, rubbing her eyes. She began stretching her arms and torso as she sat next to him in the dirt. "I suppose we should start morning exercises, but… I don't know if everyone else is up yet." she then stood up and looked around, Ryner guessing she had decided to look for some sort of track or field. "Eh, it doesn't matter. Come on, let's go for a jog." Ryner didn't complain; he was used to this because of his childhood, and got up to follow her without pause. "Let's see if you can keep up!"

Without warning him, she burst into a run towards the open field. Ryner followed her effortlessly, catching up to her and eventually passing her. He ran in a large circle, and began to laugh to himself that he was still in front. Until she jumped on top of him, and sent him tumbling face-first into the dirt. He rolled back onto his feet, pulling hard on her arm, and throwing her on her back. In a quick reflexive moment, Ryner straddled her and threw a punch at her face, stopping only a moment before his knuckles connected with her chin. She wasn't grinning, he'd realized, she instead looked disappointed. Regardless of everything anyone could have said to him, not caring about what he himself thought of his action, Ryner punched her hard in the left of her face, and got off of her.

"Damn you…" he cursed in a low growl, watching her just lay down on the cold ground. "I can't believe you got me to do that." she laughed at him.

"You're instincts are good, though you're a little too paranoid." she told him, getting back to her feet. "I know you better than anyone else here. What you just did explains why you threw Catherine to the ground that one time." he gave her a look of disdain, which only made her laugh more.

"I'm not paranoid, I'm cautious." he replied with a grunt. Six put him in a headlock and pulled him tightly against her. "Hey! Knock it off!" he elbowed her hard in the ribs, causing her grip to loosen and allowing him to get free. She had doubled over, she was in much more pain than that blow should've put her in. "Dammit, what happened to you this time?" as far as he had seen, she had not been injured during the battle.

"When Jun and I went on that recon mission I was hit pretty hard in the chest when I was thrown out of the Falcon, it turns out." she explained, wiping a bit of blood from the corner of her mouth. "My lungs have been burning since then, but I didn't think anything of it too much." she fell down on the ground again.

"Alright, let's get you to a combat medic," he sighed, grabbing one of her arms to pull her up. She winced, pulling her arms out of his hands so she could stay on the ground. "Come on, we gotta get you checked out."

"Why don't you just do it?" she laughed as he held his hand out for her to take. "I've seen you set your own bones, you should be able to tell what's wrong with just a look, right?" Ryner dropped his arms again.

"That's not how it works- I'm not a medic, I just know anatomy fairly well." he said, scratching his forehead as he looked around. "The only reason I could set my own bones and stitch myself up was because I could feel what the problem was. An injury that I couldn't feel would be impossible for me to fix." Six groaned, holding her ribs in a futile attempt to stop the pain.

"Fine then-" she began, turning around. "Help me get this suit off, then take a look to see what the problem is." Ryner grabbed her by her underarms and hauled her off of the ground forcefully, causing her to almost scream in pain.

"Like I could get that stupid bodyglove off anyways, that thing requires the strength of a Spartan to take off." he grunted, dragging her towards the Barracks to get her to one of the machines. "Damn, you're heavy!"

"Shut up!" Six barked, trying to pull the suit off by herself, without much success. Ryner eventually put her down and helped her tear the glove off of her arms and torso. Immediately after he had done so, he noticed a large bruise that covered most of her left side, closer to her front. She lifted up her arm to give him a better look at the wound. Without much thought to the matter, and ignoring the instincts he had as a younger soldier, he ran his hand over the bruise and applied pressure to see her reaction. "Fuck, watch it!"

"Sorry, sorry," he replied pulling his hand away. "You need to get that looked at. Your ribs aren't broken, as they are virtually unbreakable, but something must've gotten your lung. I don't see any place where shrapnel could've hit you, but even so you're hurt pretty badly." Ryner went into the building and found the medic, bringing her outside to treat Six after only a few minutes.

"You should have come to see me right after you got back." the medic scolded her, injecting her with biofoam to help heal her quickly.

"See you about what?" Carter's voice echoed from behind the three. He noticed Six's bodyglove had been pulled off, and looked at Ryner. "What happened?" Six covered herself up as best as she could, still allowing the Medic to work.

"She was injured somehow, and never came to see me until just now."

"Will she be ready for tomorrow?" he asked, getting the attention of the three. "Noble Team is moving on the Covenant, and we'll need her." the Medic nodded, allowing Carter to relax a little bit more. "Good. Six, be ready in three hours. We're moving out at that time. That goes for you too, Blaine." Ryner nodded, preparing himself for yet another battle with the Covenant.


	4. Chapter 4: Alexandrea the Great

August 13, 2552

20:07 hrs

A Scarab walked along the red dirt through a dust cloud off in the distance. It paid Noble Team no attention; it was too busy with the meager remains of UNSC ground forces to be worried about them. The Covenant was too busy to annihilate a group of Spartans, their deadliest foe, and a single, young, ODST that shouldn't have even been there to begin with. Of course, they were all watching from within the confines of a small cave.

Ryner looked at the mechanical monster with about thirty thoughts going through his head as it moved. He wondered how he would be able to destroy it. He wondered how he could make it stop its advance on humanity. He wondered if he would ever stop wondering about such things. He didn't ever get sick of it, and in fact, didn't stop until he heard Dot talking in his head.

"Our foe is more devious than we imagined." she informed them, even though it was something they already knew. "That spire was indeed a teleporter linked to a cloaked, Covenant Supercarrier... A grave threat." Ryner looked down at the ground. "Mister Blaine, you seem unusually untroubled by this…"

"What do you mean?" he asked Dot blankly as he watched Emile, Jane, and Jorge walk by, the latter of which carried a large briefcase. He watched the Scarab fire its main cannon at the Marines on the ground.

"Your brain activity is abnormally high, but your other vitals are startlingly normal despite your current situation." Dot replied.

"You've been monitoring my vitals? Who gave you permission?" Ryner murmured, looking back at Carter because out of everyone, only he had the authority to do so.

"Nobody; I am merely making an observation," Dot stated, though Ryner felt as though she had just lied to him about that last part. "I've merely found your psychosis to be a strange anomaly in military personnel." Ryner grumbled, turning back towards the Spartans to almost certainly give Carter an earful. Dot seemed to be talking to the other members of the team before he got there, as her tone of voice and subject of information changed. "Sixty percent of the UNSC fleet is en route to Reach from existing deployments. The first battle group should arrive within forty-eight hours." Jorge threw the briefcase at Emile's feet.

"Forty-eight hours?" Jun asked, pulling off his helmet with an annoyed look. " _That's_ what they call imminent?" he walked over to Jorge and wiped some glowing ash off of the giant's left shoulder before looking over to Kat and Carter who were huddled closely together. "Uh oh. Who's your money on this time?" Jorge pulled off his helmet and smirked.

"Her." he said, causing Jun to roll his eyes.

"Tch, you _always_ choose her!" he groaned.

"She always had him dialed in." Jorge shrugged, which any normal human being would've known to mean 'totally whipped', but Ryner thought had something to do with a bomb of some sort.

"That thing's crushing us, and we're waiting for backup? They'll be backing up a graveyard." they heard Kat argue from where she and Carter stood. He scratched the top of his head with a small groan.

"all our nukes are either out-system or went down with the ships that carried them…" he explained angrily. "You're preaching to the converted."

"How converted?" she asked, making Carter start.

"I know that look, Kat," he said, pointing a finger at her.

"You can say no." she suggested in a mocking tone.

"No." he answered sternly.

"You don't even want to hear it?" she asked, obviously tapping into Carter's weakness of curiosity. It took him a moment, but he finally broke.

"...Fine, let's hear it…"

"Remember that accident a couple years back? Colony ship en route to Cygnus."

"The one with over seven hundred dead?" Ryner asked from the back of the group by accident, making Kat and Carter stare at him, as well as Jane.

"I think I remember that one…" Carter remarked, waiting for the Spartan and ODST to continue.

"Blaine, do you remember what happened?"

"Yeah, a Slipspace malfunction." he replied, looking up with his arms crossed as he figured out what Kat was about to suggest. "Oh, you can't be serious…" Kat seemed minorly surprised that he had figured it out, but got past it after a moment and nodded.

"Exactly." she said, forcing the rest of Noble Team to walk up to her.

"Wait, wait, wait," Jun interjected, looking at the pair strangely. "What's going on?" Kat looked over to Carter.

"Go on, explain," he sighed, rolling his eyes.

"Mister Blaine, a moment if you will," Dot's voice came back into Ryner's head, keeping him from initially listening to the battle plan. He walked a few feet away from the group, and talked in a small tone.

"I thought you were offline," Ryner began, slightly angered at the AI for interrupting.

"I am. Or rather, I'm supposed to be." she answered in her usual tone. "Your abnormal vitals have me deeply concerned." Ryner rolled his eyes.

"Right, because an AI can be concerned." he murmured, making Dot give him a sound of outrage. "I'm sure the Spartans' vitals are similar to mine. What makes me concerning to you?"

"You're not of the Spartan's ranks." Dot bluntly said. "You are a more or less average human being. Data suggests that someone like you shouldn't have readings as such. Your age and experiences have been taken into consideration." Ryner looked back at Noble Team and began walking back to them.

"I am fine, Dot." he told the AI. "We don't need to talk about this. Sign off."

"Very well. I shall consult upon further concerns with you at a later juncture." she replied after a moment of silence before a small buzzing noise was heard, and Dot's presence was gone. He caught back up with Noble after Carter finished asking her a question.

"As a soldier in the field I couldn't possibly have access to those kinds of resources." she replied to him with a sarcastically modest tone in her voice. "That said, a good place to look might be... I don't know, the nearest nonexistent launch site in the nonexistent Sabre Program, dismissed by three administrations as preposterous rumor…" she then looked to Jane. "And in which our newest member was _certainly_ never a pilot." Noble Team all looked in Jane's direction, and Emile groaned.

"You're scary, you know that?" he asked Jane in a small voice.

"All we need is a green light from Holland." Kat proclaimed with a small grin.

"Yeah, good luck with that," Carter remarked, shaking his head. Kat held up a data pad.

"You're the one asking him." she informed him. Carter grumbled as he reluctantly took it from her.

"Ugh, there's no way in hell he's gonna go for this…" he said, walking off to talk to the Colonel. Jane walked up to Ryner and stared at him from behind her visor.

"What do you want, Jane?" he asked her after a few minutes of her standing in silence.

"You were talking to someone while Kat was going over the mission." she replied, pulling him aside so no one would hear their conversation. "Who was it?"

"Dot." he replied instantly. He felt better when confiding in her than with the rest of Noble Team. he figured it was because she seemed to want to get to know him more than the rest of the Spartans. "She was concerned because my vitals didn't match up with her acquired data of ODSTs."

"I see. Was she a problem?"

"Not at all. I told her to sign off, and she did." he answered, thinking hard for a moment. "...But not before informing you of our conversation, right?"

"Right." she admitted. "I was worried about you when you were watching that Scarab with a blank face."

"I'm wearing a fucking helmet." he remarked when she stopped talking. Six shrugged.

"It didn't help that you were standing almost perfectly still like a statue, kid." she replied in a voice just over a whisper.

"I appreciate the concern, Six," he began in a softer tone. "But you don't gotta worry about me. I don't want someone looking out for me, alright? We've had our heart to heart at the camp, and I'd go so far as to even consider you my very first friend. I'm fine, and I won't be a problem on the battlefield." Jane looked contempt with that answer, but her body language also suggested she wanted to keep talking with him.

"Alright people, looks like we're moving out!" Carter called, having just finished his talk with Holland.

"Let's do this, Six." Ryner said, gaining a nod from the Spartan.

* * *

August 14, 2552

12:48 hrs

Jane took the Assault Rifle from Ryner as the Falcon approached the Sabre Program Facility beach in Esposz. She wasn't sure what was going on in her comrade's head, and had attempted to find out when she asked Dot to look into it for her. Unfortunately, the AI decided to pursue its own objective and signed off without doing as she had told it. She, along with Carter, Kat, and Jorge, jumped out of the Falcon onto the sands and moved on as the human aircraft took off.

"Bit of a hike to the launch facility." Jorge sighed, pulling his cannon up a little bit.

"Anywhere closer's too hot to land." Carter shrugged, snapping his DMR to his shoulder. "Move up the beach, Noble." Jane nodded and the team continued to advance across the sands until a familiar sound of incoming mortars made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end.

"Launch facility dead ahead!" called Kat from Jane's left. The first drop pod landed only five meters away from Jane a split second later, and an Elite jumped out of it.

"Hostile transport coming in!" Carter announced as Jane gunned down the first elite, only to find almost twenty more taking its place. She quickly reloaded her weapon and took aim as Jorge began unloading his cannon on the alien bastards that approached, the rest of Noble Team joining in after a moment.

Jane ducked under an incoming punch from an Elite that had gotten too close, and shot it in the back of the head before moving on. She fired and fired, dropping Energy Shields and bodies as she and the other Spartans forcefully took the beach from those attempting to keep them away from the facility. She fired a final shot through the last enemy's head and kept moving.

"More hostiles to the south!" Jorge called from ahead of her a small ways. "Route 'em out!" Jane ran to the door, all while dodging and weaving between cover and enemy fire. Almost like an ODST, Jane took position behind her enemies and helped the rest of Noble gun them down in a crossfire.

"Everybody inside! More hostiles on the way!" a young man ordered when the doors slid open and the last enemy fell.

"Let's go," Carter ordered, stopping and grabbing Jane when she attempted to cover their advancement into the building. "Six." Jane watched the doors close as a Pelican dropped additional Marines outside to combat the Covenant forces. She walked with the rest of Noble Team through the facility.

"Spartans coming in! Watch your fire!" a young woman barked as Noble entered a room where bullets and Plasma were flying in every which direction.

"Flight control's this way! They're expecting you." another young man explained to Carter when the four Spartans passed him. He tagged along with the small group until after they passed a window overlooking the crashed Seraph.

"I still can't believe Holland said yes to this…" Jorge murmured from under his helmet as they got closer to the launch site.

"Well, some plans are too good to say no." Kat shrugged, her firearm still raised to fire.

"Let's get that Sabre airborne before he changes his mind," Carter remarked in an even tone, leading the team.

"Control's right through that door, Commander." the young Marine informed them, turning around and heading back to his position. As they walked through the hallway, a Marine was thrown through the door by a Sangheili Officer. Jane sprinted up, drew her knife from her shoulder in the blink of an eye, and slammed the blade into the Elite's neck as hard as she could. The eight foot tall alien dropped to the floor as she pulled the knife out and put it back in its sheath.

Jane ran through the room, passing body after body as she immediately went to climb into her seat in the Sabre. She strapped herself in before Carter could issue the orders and before any Covenant could take a shot at her.

"Jorge, get in there!" Carter told the giant as he and Kat began firing through the doorway with some Marines. Jorge hesitated as he reached the Sabre.

"What about you and Kat?" he called over to them.

"Jun's on his way with a Falcon!" Carter replied, ducking behind cover as a Plasma Grenade launched past his head. "We'll exit after you two Launch! Just go!" Jane reached down and grabbed Jorge's shoulder.

"You heard him." she assured the giant. "Come on; we have work to do." Jorge nodded, and climbed into the seat behind her. Jane waited for the Launch Team to send them off.

"Sabre is prepped and ready for launch."

"Fire the engines; let's get this bird mobile." Jane called back to the Launch Team. A green light briefly flashed before the familiar feeling of being pulled back towards the planet washed over her, making her feel many times heavier than she actually was. This feeling passed as the two of them made it through the atmosphere and into space. The Sabre gently floated towards their target, Anchor Nine.

"Noble Actual to Sabre Bravo-Oh-Two-Niner, over." Holland's voice could be heard through Jane's helmet.

"Copy, Actual. Colonel Holland?" Jorge replied, sounding moderately surprised that Holland was talking to them.

"Affirmative, Noble Five. Welcome to Operation: UPPERCUT." Holland answered. "I'll be your control from here on out." Jane didn't mind, but she hoped she wouldn't have to listen to the Colonel drone on too much.

"Understood, Sir." Jorge said.

"Noble Six, these Sabres have been customized for orbital defense; you may need to get reacquainted…" he began, waiting for Jane to answer or not.

"Sir; I believe I can handle it just fine," She remarked, heading immediately for the UNSC Savannah.

"Very well. Rendezvous at Anchor Nine with the frigate Savannah and the other Sabres as soon as you're ready. Holland out."

"I hope you're all warmed up…" Jorge confided, Jane noticing the threat markers showing up on her HUD. "We've got unidentified contacts!" Jane immediately slammed down on the thrusters, causing the Sabre to speed directly towards the enemy ships.

" _Savannah_ Actual to Sabre teams, be advised: we have bogies inbound."

"Anchor Nine to all UNSC ships: station defenses are down." she heard buzz inside of her head. "Requesting combat support until we can bring them back online." Jorge sighed, and seemed to yawn almost.

"Here we go, Six. Show them what you can do." Jorge said, seemingly laying back in the seat.

"Banshees." Jane said to herself as she opened fire on the first wave of enemy space fighters. She dodged plasma and ripped apart enemy ships with her own missiles and waves of machine-gun fire. The first wave of Covenant ships was reduced to nothing but ash within ten minutes, despite the multiple cries of help and the sounds and sights of UNSC personnel death still barely even fazed her. She did notice it, of course, but she only felt it in her heart a small bit.

The Banshees were no trouble for her, and when the Seraphs arrived, Jane barely registered her commands. She went on a killing spree, easily taking out the enemy fighters as they appeared. She heard the screams of terrified men and women who were operating the other Sabres as well as the human spacecraft around them, but she couldn't comprehend the reasoning behind it. The last Phantom exploded in a bright display of purple and blue, finally relieving Jane of her state. She found that Jorge's hand was resting on her shoulder, as if he were trying to gain her attention.

"Are you alright, Spartan?" he asked her with a slight amount of concern in his voice. Jane nodded, feeling him grip her shoulder very tightly for a moment before pulling his arm back.

"Anchor Niner to UNSC ships: all targets neutralized. Bravo-Oh-Two-Niner, you are clear to dock. Activating marker." she heard over the comms. Jane followed the waypoint and docked the Sabre.

"I'm out here, Six." Jorge said, jumping out of the Sabre as the cockpit depressurized and allowed him. Jane heard static in her helmet, loud enough that she wanted to rip it off and break it as she watched Jorge silently float away.

"Noble Five's heart rate has spiked." Auntie Dot's voice echoed through Jane's head. "He seems to be experiencing fear and anger."

"Any soldier would feel that given the situation." Jane replied, still watching the Giant.

"It is not fear for oneself. Doctor Halsey seems to be on his mind, Noble Six."

"It wouldn't surprise me, Dot." Six admitted.

"Bravo-Oh-Two-Niner, you're cleared to re-engage thrusters." Anchor Nine told her, causing Jane to immediately turn the Sabre back on.

"Noble Six, this is Holland."

"Go ahead, Colonel," Jane replied, putting her hand to the side of the helmet.

"We've flagged a corvette-class vessel on a predicted docking track with our target." he informed her as she saw the precursor to a slipspace rupture directly ahead of her. "Get our makeshift bomb on that corvette, and we have our delivery system. Noble Five will escort the bomb. I need your Sabre team to clear the way for boarding"

"Understood, Colonel."

"As she's already donated her slipspace drive to the cause, the _Savannah_ will be joining you to provide local fire support." Holland said as Jane watched the Savannah begin moving.

"UNSC _Savannah_. Our wings may be clipped, but we've got your back!" Savannah Actual roared in her other ears.

"I've stuck my neck out for Noble on this one, Lieutenant," Holland remarked, his voice a little angered. "Don't make me regret it."

"We'll get it done, Colonel. Six out."

"Target Corvette sighted within visual range of NAV Beacon RA-Fifteen." Dot echoes through Jane's mind.

"We have visual. Target confirmed." Jane grinned, forcing the Sabre forwards at top-speed. She began firing on the Corvette's engines as the Savannah suggested it to Holland, and managed to take them out before anyone else even got close enough.

After that, the Covenant managed to send back out waves of ships to take on the UNSC forces. Six fought harder than any other soldier could have, and forced the Sabre's engines to its absolute limits. She, along with the other Sabre Teams, destroyed every single Covenant ship that tried to escape or appeared to take them on.

"Their defenses are down! Move on them now, Noble!" Holland ordered in a hastened voice. Jane nodded, flew to the landing pad on her HUD, and jumped out to engage the enemy soldiers that had not been killed in the depressurization of the hangar.

"Hostiles engaged." Jane reported, firing her DMR without pause. She emptied each magazine as quickly as she loaded them, and finally stopped when the enemies stopped funneling in. Jane made sure to deactivate their communications for the Savannah. Jane noticed Marines jumping out of their Sabres to join her.

"Alright, Noble. Let's get that slipspace bomb on board. Six, head for the hangar." she heard Holland say. Jane did as she was told, and moved into the large open area. She opened fire on the first sign of movement, and put a bullet straight through the head of a Jackal.

The room exploded in gunfire, plasma and lead blasting through the air, slamming into each side of the room as soldier after soldier went down on both sides. Six blasted her way through the Grunts and Elites, smiling to herself as she watched the Grunts scream in fear, and the Elites stutter for brief moment when they realized they were going to die.

Eventually, the team engaged another wave of soldiers that were aided by a Huragok, which was providing them with Overshields. Jane knew to take it out as fast as she could, and once it exploded gloriously, the rest of the enemies soon followed. She reloaded her weapon and led the soldiers through the hallways, killing enemies on the way, and managed to find the Control Room, where she assassinated several Elites stealthily, and then deactivated the Hangar Shields.

"Good work Six!" Jorge called over the comms. "Wanna make your way back here? I'm all by my lonesome!" she laughed by accident at Jorge's request.

"Of course, big guy," she answered, the Marines following her back through the corridors to find a battle with some more of the Covenant's soldiers. Before Six could make it back to where Jorge would be, her comms flared again.

"Noble Six, this is Holland," he began, pausing for a moment to make sure Jane had heard him. "You need to get that Corvette moving towards the Carrier. Head to the ship's bridge. Find the NAV controls." she rolled her eyes as she realized that the bridge was in the other direction. She swore to herself as she reloaded her DMR and ran with the rest of the Marines to where they needed to go, listening to what sounded like a massive explosion outside of the Covenant Ship.

"There's no sound in space…" Jane momentarily paused, bringing her hand up to the side of her head. "Five! Talk to me; what was that?!" when she got no response, she tried again. "Dammit Jorge, _speak to me_!"

"It's gone! The Savannah was destroyed!" he growled back through the channel. "Frigate's gone, there ain't nothin' we can do! Da-" Jorge obviously swore as he was cut off by Holland again.

"You're in deep without cover, Noble." he began, his voice much more rushed than before. "Get that ship moving, and get _out_!" Jane moved much faster now, almost sprinting through the waves of enemies and gunfire to get to the bridge. She didn't stop, either. She ducked behind cover, assassinated the nearest Elite without alerting the others, and then opened fire on them as she drew her knife across the throat of the second one.

All out hell ensued in the room. Grunts, Jackals, and Elites all tried in vain to kill her, using any and every weapon they had with little success. Fuel Rods, Concussion blasts, and Plasma flew around the room without pause, killing both Marines and Covenant until Jane was able to put the final enemy out of his misery. Without even waiting for Holland's input, Jane engaged the Corvette's auto-piloted refueling course, and ran back towards the hangar. She fired as the doors opened and put a bullet through the skull of a Jackal.

"Good thing you decided to show!" Jorge yelled from where he was taking cover next to the Pelican. "Our ride's taking a damn beating!" Jane laughed, realizing that she had just loaded her last magazine into her rifle. She ran back over to the ship as she unloaded the last few bullets into the heads of whatever enemy she could quickly snap to before she dropped the gun on the ground and picked up the Sniper Rifle that was laying on a case. As she turned to take a shot, a needle from a Needle Rifle slammed into a Marine's chest and splattered blood all over her visor.

"Bl-" she gasped, nearly falling backwards because of how sudden it was. She shook her head of the momentary confusion, and aimed at her targets, pulling the trigger. "What the hell-?" she murmured, letting loose four shots into the Elites that continued to flood into the room. She reloaded several times, and killed every single enemy that she shot at with startlingly low accuracy. Every single time a Marine died, she felt a stabbing pain in her chest, which made her aim even worse. She didn't even understand why that was, and eventually, she became useless in the fight. Every single Marine perished in the fight, and Jane was left sitting on the floor in a cold sweat.

"What's wrong?" Jorge asked her as he walked over to the Pelican. "You're shaking, Six…"

"It's nothing, Five." she replied in a voice that she barely recognized as her own. Jorge seemed rather taken aback, but shook it off and walked over to the Pelican, attempting to activate the Slipspace drive.

"Distance is closing on this vessel's refueling track with the Covenant supercarrier. Seventy-six seconds to endpoint." Dot said as Jorge groaned angrily,causing Jane to look up at him and get to her feet.

"Damn it... So, it's gonna be like that…" he sighed, hitting the device angrily. "Well, I got good news and bad news. This bird took some fire and her thruster gimbal is toast, which means the only way off this slag heap is gravity."

"And the good news?"

"That was the good news, kid."

"At current Velocity; fifty three seconds to impact…" Dot interrupted as Jorge removed his helmet.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah…" he murmured, throwing it to the ground. He gave her a look she had never seen on the face of a SPARTAN II before. "Bad news is, the timer's fried. I'm gonna have to fire it manually." her eyes widened when she heard what the giant she had come to call friend said.

"Jorge, that's a one-way trip." she was barely able to say. Jorge nodded, knowing full well what he was saying to her. He put his hand on her shoulder.

"We all make it sooner or later. Better get going, Six, they're gonna need you down there." he smiled, patting her on the back before reaching for his neck. "Listen, keep the ODST safe, and stay safe yourself. Now, Reach has been good to me." he pulled hard on the tags around his neck, holding them out for Jane to take. She was surprised when he picked her up. "Time's come to return the favor. Don't deny me this, please." he carried her over to the hangar door and paused.

"Jorge-!"

"Tell 'em to make it count!" he barked to her as he threw her out of the ship. She could only watch in silence as she slowly floated away from the exploding Corvette, and gravity pulled her back down through the planet's atmosphere. The re-entry was agonizingly warm for several minutes until Jane's body suit finally acclimated to her environment and cooled her off. She was thankful that she was wearing the re-entry package, as it saved her life when she finally, and painfully, slammed into the ground.

* * *

August 22, 2552

13:27 hrs, New Alexandria

Jade Yzain looked over at Martin as she slumped back in pain against an overturned truck. She was sitting in a pool of blood, which she knew could have belonged to anyone, dead or alive. Chris had died just a few minutes before; his body laying mere meters away, ripped to shreds and burnt up by needles and plasma. She was completely shaken; someone she had known throughout much of her high school life had just died in front of her.

Martin wasn't much better off. She knew him almost as well as Mary and Chris, and that was enough to know how he felt about it. Martin had asked Chris to be his best man, after all. He was staring at the pavement with a strong look that was quickly faltering into one of tears. Jade almost had to stop looking at him because she knew that the moment he cried, she would too.

"Jade…" Mary's voice trailed off, as Jade finally realized that she and Jason had gotten back from their recon. Mary's face was almost black with dirt and grime, and her hair was ragged and stuck out at odd angles. Mary's wide eyes were fixed on the body.

"It's West." she confirmed, watching the tears roll down Mary's cheeks. Mary fell to her knees and covered her eyes with her fists, choking back a wail that would have led any enemy in the area directly to them with considerable effort. "He walked out into the open, and never stood a chance…" Martin turned away from the two and his shoulders began shuddering.

"Dammit…" he cursed under his breath, looking at the bloody mess. "Dammit, Chris… why did you have to be the hero?" Jade looked at the bandage on Martin's left arm, where he had been shot by a Covenant Sniper, and then she looked over to the two Marines that Chris managed to save before he and the third one were killed. Martin flipped the safety off of his Magnum and walked out into the open area, carefully, and dug around in Chris' pocket before pulling out an old lighter.

"Get back here, Martin!" Jason barked as he approached the remnants of the team. Martin smiled as he sparked the lighter on the way back. Jason only then seemed to realize what had just happened, as he went pale as a corpse. He'd lost many soldiers in his time in service, but it always took a toll on him when he saw a dead soldier. "So we lost West, then?" Jade nodded, her body seemingly heavier than it already felt. "Alright. Let's get our asses in gear; if we don't move out now I don't think we ever will."

"Yes sir," Jade breathed, putting her helmet back on and standing with her rifle in hand. "Martin, Mary, let's move." Martin looked back at his fallen friend before covering his dirt covered head with his helmet and following closely behind everyone.

"We found a somewhat safer way through the city to the Pelican." Jason told her as he snapped his rifle to his shoulder. "I'm sorry for your loss, but we have to keep moving, got it?"

"Of course, sir." Martin answered, holding his Magnum up as he didn't seem to be able to lift his injured arm that high. They walked in a formation, with Jason in front, Jade and Mary in back, and Martin in the middle with the two Marines. They could hear the distant sounds of Elites and Jackals as well as several Brutes and Hunters.

"Where is the Pelican anyways?" Jade asked Mary after a few minutes of walking through ruined buildings.

"We still got about twenty clicks to go." she replied with a small sigh.

"That blows…" she grunted, looking around to make sure they weren't being followed. "Really hope we don't get caught in another firefight here…"

"You HAD to open your mouth, didn't you?" Martin growled as a bolt from a Plasma Pistol flew over his head, forcing everyone to take cover. As soon as everyone had managed to get behind something solid, the entire area was lit up in all colors from various Covenant weapons. Jade was positive that she could have named at least eight separate guns just based on the plasma she was seeing.

"Alright Fireteam, let's move!" Jason ordered, Jade moving up first because of her position in the back, and Mary following immediately after. "And watch your corners!"

"Right, sir." Jade murmured, quickly looking from side to side, scanning any area she could see for enemies. The first Grunt that she came across was instantly killed by her with a round through its head, and the rest of the Covenant forces emerged full force to destroy her and her team. She dove left behind a concrete barrier, getting shot in her right leg by a Carbine but otherwise suffering no damage. "Down down down!"

"Holy shit!" one of the Marines yelled moments before the next shot splattered his brains across the remaining soldiers, temporarily paralyzing the other long enough for a concussion rifle to blast him apart while the ODSTs managed to get away.

"How many?!" Jason called as he riskily yanked a Needle out of his left arm.

"I couldn't get a good look; I think I saw around thirty!" Martin yelled back over to him.

"Sir, are you okay?!" Mary asked from where she sat, her helmet's visor cracked and useless, blood flowing into one of her eyes.

"Yes, now figure out a plan, and fight to the last fucking bullet!" he replied, pulling back the slide on his Magnum and firing at the enemy. Jade looked over the barrier to see that the number of enemies was much higher than thirty. There didn't seem to be any end.

"Dammit…" she groaned under her breath before unloading her magazine into the enemy fodder. They dropped and kept dropping as she and the rest of the living squad unloaded bullet after bullet and purple alien blood splattered on the nearby walls and ground. It wouldn't be enough. They would run out of ammunition before they got to the end of the impending doom.

Then something odd caught her eye. It was only for a brief moment, but it was long enough that she was able to see it. The Covenant started being blasted apart from behind. She was bewildered to see a lone ODST using every weapon that surrounded him to rip through the enemy line to get to her and her team. She took a deep breath and held down the trigger, killing any enemy that didn't consider her a threat until everything in the field except for the lone human covered in Sangheili blood.

"Identify and respond." Jason called as he got up and walked towards the man.

"Chief Warrant Officer Three, Ryner Blaine of Noble." the ODST responded with. "I was sent in for the extraction of Fire Team Theta Five dash One-Three-Four." Jade recognized his voice, and was brought back to the assault on Sword Base.

"This is Captain Jason O'Reilly of Theta Five One Three Four." he grunted as he got up and walked to the taller ODST. "Reporting in. Trask didn't say anything about an evac team. Where's the rest of your squad?"

"I am the squad, sir." the ODST replied, starting to run in the direction he had just come from. "We better get moving before any more of them show up. This way to the Pelican." Jason nodded for the rest of the team to follow. Jade and Martin took up the rear of the group, watching behind the rest of the group to ensure nothing could sneak up on them.

They were moving swiftly through the remains of the city, passing by bodies of both human and Covenant soldiers. Jade figured that the ODST must have fought for almost ten hours straight before he reached them, even if the humans were squadmates of his and were with him. As they ran, Jade eventually began to wonder why her team was being extracted. They hadn't done anything other than grab a holographic projection from an ONI subsite, and they weren't as important as regular Marines.

"Hold up." The ODST told them, holding out his hand. "Two hundred meters. Brute. Heavy armor."

"Surrounding forces?" Jason inquired, motioning for Mary, the team Sniper, to take position.

"Unclear; possibly twenty or more." he said, pointing his DMR forwards. "Take out the Brute, we'll handle the rest." Mary nodded, taking a deep breath before firing a shot into the skull of her target. The ODST immediately opened fire on the rest of the enemies, killing most of them before anyone could even attempt a shot.

"Fire! Fire!" Jason ordered, as the rest of the squad unloaded their weapons into the enemy forces. After all of the bodies dropped, the ODST walked through the corpses with his gun snapped to his shoulder. He then held out his hand in a way that let the squad know it was okay to proceed.

Another two hours of running went by quickly, but the ODST brought them to a different Pelican; one with the word ONI written on one of its sides, immediately under UNSC. Jade was puzzled about the reasoning behind going to ONI's Pelican, but watched silently as a man with dark skin talked with Jason, and then took the object they had grabbed from the Covenant before motioning everyone onboard. The ODST joined them as well, sitting at the back to watch the rear.

"This damn stupid object had better be worth the men that were killed to get it!" Jason yelled at the ONI agent that had taken it from him. "You sent us on a suicide mission. Just what is that thing anyways?"

"Above your paygrade." the man said in a deep voice as he put the object in a briefcase.

"I'm ordering you to tell me what that is." Jason said in a stern tone. The man was taller than Jason, but when Jason got mad, nobody wanted to be in his line of fire.

"I can't." the man said again. "It is ONI's now."

"We lost people for something that you can't even tell us about?!" Mary piped up, immediately being outdone by Martin as he stood out of his chair, and dropped his rifle.

"This is bullshit!" he growled at the agent, Jade and Mary forced to grab and hold him by his arms so he couldn't beat the hell out of the man. "Let go!"

"Stand down!" Jade pleaded with him, her strength not nearly enough to keep her angered fiance back. He growled at her, and kept struggling forwards.

"Stand down." the ODST ordered of Martin as he walked up. "A commanding officer as ordered you to surrender the object in your briefcase. Do it now, or I'll shoot you on the spot." the ONI agent's eyes widened and then narrowed.

"I was trained as an ODST too," the agent started. "Don't think you can threaten or draw faster than I can-" the ODST cut him off, drawing his magnum in a fraction of a second, and pointing it directly at his head.

"Warrant Officer Ryner Blaine." he said to the agent. "I am ordering you to follow Captain O'Reilly's command. Show him the object that his man died for." the agent growled, but pulled out the small device.

"This is the piece of garbage that one of my best soldiers died for?!" he roared, his body shaking in such a way that Jade wasn't surprised when he punched the agent in the side of the face. The agent dropped it as he stumbled back, and the ODST caught it. He flipped a switch, and something came out of it in a holographic projection. It was some sort of artifact, underground, in a dig sight it appeared.

"I'm not authorized to give any more information." the agent said to him, turning it off and putting back in the case. "I should hold you for the assault of an ONI agent…"

"A dead man can't charge anything." the ODST said menacingly. "Once we're off this ship, make sure I never see you again." the agent didn't back down, but Jade could see the sweat rolling down the side of his head. He nodded in understanding. A moment later, an explosion slammed into the side of the Pelican.

"What was that?!" Jason barked at the pilots.

"Banshees, sir!" the pilot called back. "Lots of 'em! I can't get rid of 'em all on my own!"

"Open the back." the ODST said, taking the Sniper Rifle from Mary, and reloading it. He took a knee and aimed, firing a shot into what must have been a weak place, causing the vehicle to explode."How much longer until we get to the destination?"

"Ten clicks, sir." the Pilot responded.

"Punch it." he ordered, motioning for everyone in the back to help him fire at the Covenant Aircraft. "Get that gun at the ready." Jade looked at the minigun and nodded, dragging it across the floor. She loaded it and took aim before holding down the triggers and ripping apart the enemies with fifty-caliber rounds. The enemies were still coming after them, but there were lesser reinforcements.

"I can't go any faster!" the pilot yelled. "They're still gainin' on us!"

"Get us the distance, now!" Jason said, firing his Magnum at the Covenant.

"Still about ten!" the pilot responded.

"Go!" he said, shooting and downing one more. "Take evasive maneuvers when necessary!" eventually, the Banshees started getting shot down by human AA guns, which saved all their asses as the Pelican started to smoke and shut down. The pilot managed to land.

"Move, move, move!" another officer with greying brown hair, a war-heavy face, and the name York on his chest ordered to Marines around him, who moved to the Pelican with their weapons pointed. "Identify yourselves!"

"Captain Jason O'Reilly, Theta Five One Three Four!" he called back. The Marines stood down, and allowed the ODSTs and the ONI agent to walk out of the aircraft. Jade sighed with relief as she shouldered her weapon and followed Martin.

"-I'll be there shortly." the ODST called Ryner said, holding a finger to his ear to indicate he was talking to someone. "Where? Very well." he looked at the officer. "Lieutenant."

"Are you Blaine?" York asked the ODST.

"That's right." he said. "I have orders to fly back in to Alexandrea to help with the evacuation."

"I heard." he replied, motioning for a pair of pilots to prep a new Pelican. "I'll be sending in a few from other squads as well." he looked at Jade. "You'll be joining him as well." he then walked off and gathered about five more people before coming back. "We should get you and your team more equipment. Follow." The ODST, Jade, and the rest of the team followed York to a weapons locker. "We can spare a few weapons- enough to outfit your team."

Jade walked around and grabbed a DMR with a new scope, and a new helmet, and then watched to see what the others grabbed. The ODST strapped a Sniper Rifle to his back, loaded a DMR, and took a Magnum as a sidearm. He put several magazines for all of them in his pockets and in his vest. The other Marines and a separate ODST she had never met before with bright blue armor grabbed standard Assault Rifles, SMGs, and DMRs.

"Everyone prepared?" The ODST asked, to which all of the others nodded. "This is Warrant Officer Ryner Blaine. Start up the engines." he quickly walked to the Pelican, and got onboard, soon followed by Jade. "Sound off!"

"Sergeant Jade Yzain!" Jade called.

"Private Matthews, sir!" Matthews was a shorter man with blond hair. Young features that told those around him that he had only just started.

"Corporal Johnson!" Johnson was also young; Jade figured just a little over her age. He had darker skin, the color of coffee, and intelligent eyes that seemed to look through the faceplate.

"Mason!" Mason appeared to be in his later years, with a leathery face and greying hair.

"Prawn!" Corporal Prawn was just about Jade's age as well. She stood at around five ten, and had a slim build. She had strawberry hair and dark eyes, which graced her naturally beautiful face.

"Corporal Rezendes, sir!" Corporal Rezendes was also a woman, but somewhat older, around thirty. She still appeared young, but her face carried war stories that the young ODST dared not ask about.

"Let's move!" he yelled to the pilots. "Get ready for a fight. We're helping ground teams evacuate civilians and injured soldiers. Our job is to keep them alive until they board a cruiser, and then they're the air support's problem. Understood?"

"Sir, yes sir!" they all responded.

"Alright. Mason, Prawn, you two are a pair now. Stick together." he said, before putting his weapon down to talk. "Same goes for everyone else. Rezendes, you're with Matthews. Yzain, you're with Johnson." Jade looked at him oddly from beneath her helmet.

"What about you?!" she asked, as the rest of them were about to ask.

"I'll be fine on my own." he replied. "If we get split, find a partner, and make your way to the central tower."

"Understood." everyone but Jade replied.

"How far out are we?" he asked the pilots. "Eight already? Looks like we were closer this time. Everyone at the ready, weapons check!" he looked around the room, getting nods from everyone. "Wait for the Pelican to land and the light to turn green." outside, it sounded and felt like mortars were dropping right around them. A few minutes later, the Pelican landed and opened, allowing them to funnel out and open fire immediately upon Brutes and Jackals.

"Sir, cover on the left! Hostiles funneling southeast!" Jade told him, moving for cover. The ODST nodded, letting the Marines and her move behind something. They fired at their enemies until the soldiers realized that they were behind them. Brutes launched at them, along with Jackals, and Hunters.

"Covenant inbound!" Prawn yelled, pulling back the slide of her Assault Rifle, and emptying her magazine into the fodder sent after them. The other Marines followed her lead, but Jade made each of her shots precise. She missed about a third of the time, but she killed her enemy when her shot connected.

The ODST was blasting them apart. Every shot he took seemed to take down another enemy. Jade wondered how he'd gotten so good with a weapon, but it wasn't the time to lose her focus and think about such things. She was reminded of this by her visor being splattered by Mason's blood as his body almost exploded from being hit by a blast of Plasma.

"Sir, we should move!" Rezendes called to the ODST. the ODST nodded as response.

"Scatter! Teams!" the ODST ordered from afar. "Get to the waypoint on your HUDs. Prawn, you're with me now!"

"R-right!" Prawn replied, running over to the ODST.

Jade and Johnson nodded at each other once before jumping their cover and running towards the nearby buildings. He watched the left, and she watched the right as they ran. Johnson always ran in front of her when checking rooms, despite the fact that she was an ODST. After an hour of running, the two reached their waypoint.

"Took you long enough." the ODST said as they approached.

"Well, we were trying to be careful, sir." Johnson said to him.

"We're on a time limit, soldier." the ODST told him. "We can't afford to be careful until we get to the city."

"Sorry, sir."

"Don't apologize, move out." he replied, running quickly through the streets and helping the other three soldiers pull children and families out of the rubble. Jade shrugged when Johnson looked at her, and the two shouldered their weapons to help out. There were roars from Covenant officers from time to time, but mostly they were able to get them out of there.

After a few days of that process, more UNSC forces got to the area to help out with the evacuation, even the intervention of a SPARTAN Team, something Jade was skeptical about. She seemed to be the only member of her team there at the time, which she was thankful for, and the team had lost Johnson from sniper fire.

Jade and the ODST had been re-assigned to assist Edward Buck on a classified mission, and were sitting in a Falcon. The buildings were on fire from the hours of bombardment and battle.

"Command: this is Gunnery Sergeant Buck, Eleventh ODST, over?" Edward started. "My guys got caught in a firefight in the Nomolos Tower, roof collapsed. I gotta get over there and get them out." he nodded and shouldered his weapon. "We got someone going over there now. Spartan." The ODST seemed to shift.

"Noble?" he asked Buck.

"Not sure. Probably." he replied. "We're touching down and dropping in to rescue those guys." the Falcon started to slow as they approached their destination. Jade, Edward, and the ODST jumped down and ran into the building, looking for their guys as the sounds of battle echoed around them. "Let's get our boys out of here…"

"Right, sir…" Jade replied, walking forwards with her weapon at her shoulder as she looked for the rest of the soldiers. They'd gotten seven out before the building rumbled. "What was that?"

"Tremor…" Buck started. "Ho- shit! EVERYONE OUT! GO GO GO!" he started running, the ODST and Jade closely behind him. A moment before escaping, Jade felt a sharp pain strike the top of her head, and her world went black.


	5. Chapter 5: There'll Be Another Time

August 23, 2552

Ryner hauled the young ODST out of the rubble as a swarm of Engineers started to fire on them. He fired his Magnum at them in return, and ducked behind cover. Buck seemed busy trying to get some people strapped into the Falcon, and didn't notice the enemy soldiers until after they had swarmed outside as well.

"What the- OH SHIT!" he exclaimed, diving out of the way as a plasma shot barely missed his chest. Ryner laid down some suppressing fire to let Buck get into cover. "Alright, change of plan…" he looked at Ryner as he said that. "We storm them. How good's your arm while carrying her?"

"Good enough." he replied. "Let's go." no sooner than he said the words, did Buck and him jump out of cover and rush to the Falcon. He fired relentlessly until he was able to secure the ODST and himself into the airship, with Buck on them just as fast.

"Punch it, Pilot, go!" Buck yelled, emptying his last magazine into the remainder of Covenant. After they were about a kilometer away, Buck finally settled enough to take off his helmet, and wipe the sweat from his brow. "Damn…"

"Not over yet, Buck." Ryner said. "They're glassing the place it looks like."

"Shit…" Buck started, looking ready to throw his bucket out of the vehicle. "Just like all the other planets… Damn, this sucks…"

"Not as much as it will for us if we get hit by that radiation and shit." Ryner remarked. "Pilot, get our asses in gear! We're gonna get hit if you don't get us out now!"

"Noble One to Noble Seven; Blaine are you there?" Carter's voice asked over scratchy comms.

"I copy, sir." Ryner replied, getting an odd look from Buck. "Sir, the Covenant are going to glass the city in the area that you're in."

"Who are you-?"

"Copy Blaine." he said. "Come pick us up when the Glassing is over."

"Yes, sir." he said. "Get us out of range of the radiation. Once it's over, we're going back to pick up the Spartan Team Noble."

"Right sir." the Pilot said, bringing them to an evacuation site where everyone except for Ryner was taken into the ship and brought off-planet. Ryner saluted Buck, and stayed onboard the Falcon to wait out the Covenant ships.

Eventually, the Falcon started moving. The Pilot had gotten orders and a waypoint. A red flare appeared from the underside of a building, and the Falcon started to land. As it did, Ryner saw the shapes of four Spartans, no five, Carter was carrying Kat. Ryner wondered why until he saw the hole in her visor. He stopped, watching Carter walk off.

"You're alive!" Six said, sounding almost happy. He finally noticed her talking and smiled. He noticed a new piece on her armor; a Bracer similar to Jorge's on her left arm. Ryner figured he had to be dead.

"So it's down to us five, then?" he asked, watching as Jun and Emile walked past with their heads down. Six hugged Ryner tightly, almost crushing him.

"Yeah." she managed to get out, though Ryner thought he heard her crying. "She was right next to me. Not even a foot away, and then… dammit!"

"Are you okay?" Ryner asked, not remembering a time in his entire life where he'd ever asked that question. Six shook her head. "Come on. Let's get on board." he led her to the Falcon and buckled her in, much to the surprise of Noble Team. "where to now, Carter?"

"Not sure." he said. "I'll let you know."

August 29 2552, 26:16 hrs

Esposz was on fire. Sword Base was on fire. What used to be green fields were replaced with smouldering ruin and burning corpses. It smelled like oil and decaying flesh. It was nothing new to the men stationed on the ground; the ODSTs, Blaine, or Noble Six.

"Noble One, this is Noble Actual. Noble One?" Holland's voice rang over the communications.

"Go ahead." Carter replied.

"We need that base taken out, son." Holland replied. "What's your status?"

"Still outside. Thermal on the interior shows standing-room-only. We're gonna have to thin 'em out or we'll be way too popular."

"Copy that, Noble One. Holland out." the voice cut off and Ryner and Six jumped over a small rock and landed next to three other ODSTs. Six walked in front of the three, holding up her hand to show them who's command they were under.

"We've got a job to do, so let's stay focused and get it done. Six, are you in position?"

"Affirmative." she said.

"Good." Carter said as Six made the signal for them to 'follow'. "Execute." Six had not even walked another ten feet before her radio burst to life. "Covenant own this sector now, and are defending for a major strike, not a small-group infiltration. Eliminate all hostile anti-air defense so the rest of Noble can land at Sword Base for the torch-and-burn. Keep a low profile, we'll take 'em by surprise, this'll be a helluva lot easier."

"We'll follow you!" one of the ODSTs said. The team moved swiftly until they reached the flooded ruins of Farragut Station. Six noticed that there was a Falcon down just before the Covenant infantry. "Should we check for bodies?"

"Not until the area is cleared." Ryner replied before Six had a chance her mouth. "Take out the Shade." The ODST looked at Ryner before nodding and readying their shot. Ryner and Six moved up to where the Pelican was and Six gave the order to open fire.

It was fast; over before it even began. The ODSTs were able to destroy the Infantry, and none of them were even shot at by the Ghost because Ryner had destroyed it in a way Six had no idea existed.

"All clear, Lieutenant!" someone yelled once they had made sure everything was dead.

"Kat was right. It does seem like overkill." Emile's voice said to Six. "Sending us back here for a simple demo op?"

"ONI thinks it's worth it. That tell you something?" Jun asked him begrudgingly.

"Tells me things ain't so simple…"

The group came across another deployable tower, and sitting behind it was a Scorpion Tank. Six eagerly got into it, but Ryner seemed to not want to use the heavy weaponry, as he stood on top of it instead of sitting or climbing into the gunner position.

"Ready to get that Anti Air if you are, sir." the ODST Sergeant reported as he blew apart a Ghost.

Six and the rest of the team cleared out the area. They then moved to the first anti-air cannon, and got rid of it before destroying the second as well. There were hordes of Covenant Infantry that wanted to block them off, but Six and Ryner weren't having it. The two moved back to Sword Base, notified that the rest of Noble had landed, and that Jun was working on getting the gate open.

"I miss Kat." Six sighed as they got closer to the team. Six and Kat had become something akin to friends in the time that they'd known each other. Ryner nudged her shoulder, but without his reassuring face and just the blank Visor, Six only felt worse.

Six and Ryner sprinted through the gate once it was open. They went to the courtyard fast and fired their weapons until no more aliens moved. Carter chuckled and was about to congratulate Ryner, when he suddenly pulled Carter a few feet forwards and engaged an Elite that had been cloaked in Active Camouflage. He dropped it with a quick knife thrust into the jugular, and then eye. Carter thanked him as they walked into the facility, killed whatever remained, and found their elevator.

They spoke briefly with Doctor Halsey, which Six didn't pay any attention to because she hated the woman. They were told about an AI, a construct that had to do with what Kat had tampered with at Visegrad, and some Covenant interference. Aside from that, Six didn't care to listen, and her attention had turned to Ryner, who was bleeding from a wound in his forearm. She attempted to ask him what was wrong, but Ryner shrugged her off and grunted.

The team stepped out of the lift and started to run towards where they figured Halsey's lab would be, at which point Ryner remarked that 'it was not a natural cave' with discomfort evident in his tone. They eventually found it, and grabbed any weapon they could get their hands on. Ryner seemed to favor the basic DMR and Assault Rifle, which struck Six as odd, because she knew he wouldn't have any problems lifting a heavier object.

The team defended the base through hordes and hordes of Covenant soldiers, Grunts, Brutes, Elites, Jackals, and even Hunters at the end. Six's primary focus was on keeping everyone alive, especially the ODST, and she almost paid the price for that when a Needle flew at her unshielded body, and Ryner took the hit to his right arm when he shoved her out of the way. Once the enemies all died off, Noble Team was allowed inside, where they could see Halsey and a small purple-blue hologram in the back of a small room.

"What is this stuff?" Jun asked as he shouldered his weapon to look around.

"Knowledge. A birthright from an ancient civilization." Halsey answered. "This AI is its custodian, and she has chosen you to be her carriers."

" _Chosen_? By an AI?" Emile questioned.

"By _this_ AI, yes. Her view of you carries as much weight as my own..." Halsey confirmed with a hint of annoyance in her voice. She moved slightly, showing the purple hologram "Perhaps more. You are to take her to the UNSC ship-breaking yards in Aszod. There, you will find a _Halcyon_ -class light cruiser waiting to get her off-planet."

"I understand." Carter said.

"Do you?" Halsey questioned in her usual superior tone.

"For the love of- YES he understands!" Ryner growled to Halsey, gaining a surprised, but not unhappy, look from Carter. Halsey looked outraged. "Why the hell wouldn't he understand that this is the last hope for humanity? A fucking _child_ could understand! And would kill fewer people!" Halsey now seemed reluctant as she turned and handed the object to Six.

"I have it." Six said when Halsey wouldn't let go. Halsey hesitated again before releasing the object. "Let's move. We should get out of here while we can."

The team moved back through another corridor and got onto another lift, which carried them to a landing pad. There were two Pelicans waiting for them, prepped and ready to go. The team said their goodbyes to Jun, who was sent to watch over Halsey and ensure _nothing fell into Covenant hands_.

Ryner climbed into a seat in the back while Carter manned the controls, and Emile and Six sat at the back. Ryner would need some sleep, Six figured. The amount of blood loss he had suffered, plus the demanding day, was a lot for a regular ODST to handle. Six wanted to go talk to him, but decided to remain with Emile at the back for a while. Eventually, Emile gave her the look, and Six got up to sit next to Ryner.

"Are you alright?" she asked him when he didn't say anything.

"Yes." he replied quietly. "Just tired is all."

"I could tell from how you raised your voice to Halsey." Six chuckled, patting his shoulder, which caused Ryner to wince and growl. "Ah, apologies."

"Whatever." he grumbled, looking back at his bleeding shoulder. Six let out a small sigh, and awkwardly embraced Ryner. He seemed utterly confused about the entire situation, but didn't protest against her monstrous strength. "I'm fine. You should watch the door with Emile."

August 30, 2552

Aszod, Eposz

Ryner groaned as he tried to stand up, his entire body shaking and unbalanced. Something had gone off directly to his left, a flash bang, or maybe a Plasma Grenade. His right shoulder was having none of his attempt to survive, as it locked and screamed at him to stay down. He thought he heard someone scream at him, but perhaps he was reliving Carter's Noble sacrifice to crash into the Scarab when he, Six, and Emile were in a cave system.

Ryner was suddenly pulled several feet by someone. He didn't know who it was, but he knew that it was someone he could trust. His eyes refused to adjust to the light, leaving him blind, and his ears were shot from the sound of the explosion. He had several small burning wounds on his left side, which were painful to endure. He had to wager his helmet had come off. If it hadn't, he would still see the HUD and the VISR systems would be flickering.

Eventually, his hearing came back enough that he could make out the voice talking to him, as well as the arms shaking him. It was, of course, Six.

"Come on! Talk to me!" she begged as Ryner blinked a few times and let out a groan. "Emile's covering us, you need to get onboard the Pillar of Autumn!"

"The… the what?" he asked, confused.

"The ship! Captain Keyes is getting me and you out of here!" she replied, firing a final shot through an enemy's head, and hauling him up. She had taken off her helmet as well, because the first thing he saw were her bright Spartan Blue eyes. "Come on, let's get you out of here…" as a Pelican landed, captain Jacob Keyes stepped out with a small smile on his face.

"Good to see you Spartan." he said. "Catherine assured me I could count on you." one of his hands dropped to Six's shoulder. "They'll be remembered." suddenly, another Covenant Cruiser started its approach to the Pillar of Autumn. Keyes got back onto his Pelican as two Phantoms opened fire on the Pelicans, one getting destroyed by the oncoming plasma. Emile managed to get rid of one of them before an Elite got on top of the gun. Emile opened his glass shield and killed the Elite with his shotgun.

"Who's next?!" he roared triumphantly. Six smiled, and even chuckled, before she realized what Ryner had a moment before. The second Elite came up behind Emile and impaled him on its Energy Sword. Six and Ryner watched as their former teammate, and even friend, hung limply in the Elite's hand. Emile suddenly burst back to life, drawing the Kukri blade from his shoulder and stabbing the Elite in the throat with it. "I'm ready! How 'bout you?!"

"Lieutenant!" a Marine called out to Six. "get onboard!"

"Negative." Six said, looking down slightly. "I have the gun."

"What?!" Ryner blurted, almost disbelieving. "What the hell do you mean? We can get out of here and fight another day." Six leaned her forehead against Ryner's.

"Not this time, kid…" she sighed, holding him up by the front of his ballistic armor. "There's always something I wanted to try." she kissed him with a small laugh, and then threw him onto the Pelican with a strained grunt. Six waved goodbye to the stunned onlookers, including Ryner. "Take care of him for me, will you Captain?"

"You have my word." Keyes nodded, watching with Ryner as Noble Six ran through the complex to reach the massive cannon that Emile had manned by himself a few minutes prior. Ryner noticed, with slight despair, that Six had managed to slip her dog tags around his neck before throwing him.

"What the hell was that?" Ryner asked himself lowly.

"Cruiser, moving into position." Keyes suddenly said, getting the info from his surveillance team as the Pelican started to land again. "I need it dead!" the Mass Driver fired a few times to take out some Banshees and Phantoms as the Cruiser began charging its cannon. "Fire now Spartan!" there was a slight hesitation before the gun could be heard firing, and the Cruiser exploded and then crashed. "Good work Spartan. Keyes out."

Ryner looked at the floor as the ship started moving to take off. He took a deep breath and steadied himself, as he had not realized Keyes was speaking to him.

"Repeat, sir?" he requested.

"I was asking if you were alright, son." Jacob replied, patting Ryner's back. "Not everyone can stand knowing about the end of a Spartan."

"I've seen four die." Ryner said, suddenly rattling Keyes. "I don't understand why this one was just… different."

"Spartan B-Three Twelve was a friend?" he asked, closing his eyes for a moment as he seemed to receive some new information. "Huh. that's a strange situation for a young man like yourself to find himself in. go to the infirmary and get patched up. After your day, I can't imagine how much those wounds burn."

Ryner nodded, and walked away from Keyes. He was led down a few corridors to a small open room with several clean, white, operating tables, a dozen or more cots, and cupboards upon cupboards of medical supplies. The doctor onboard was an older man that appeared to have a drinking problem, as his greying hair was visible next to a bottle and glass of whiskey.

"Who's there?" he asked as he shot up from his seat. He calmed once it was clear that Ryner was a human. "Another one, huh? I thought we got all of you from our last drop…" he took another drink and then walked over to Ryner, peering at the young man's wounds. "You've done a number on yourself…" he quickly gathered some biofoam and sutures, using sterile water to clean the wounds before stitching them up, applying the biofoam where necessary.

August 30, 2552

20:00 hrs

Six stood atop a small broken balcony as she watched two Benshees fly overhead. She took a deep breath, despite the burning and vile taste it left in her mouth. She looked at the ground, and then her right hand, which held the dog tags of every Spartan she had ever seen die. Jorge's, Kat's, Carter's, and Emile's faces were on her mind as she put the tags back into her tactical hip storage, and reloaded her rifle.

'Can you survive? Alone?' she asked herself as she jumped from the tower and moved around the desolate ship-breaking yards. She fired at her first wave of enemies, killing them quickly. 'The Covenant decided long ago that they wanted Reach, and that no single Spartan could stop them…' she was suddenly hit from behind by a small blast of Plasma. She rounded on her Elite attacker, stealing the Energy Sword, and using it to cut him down. 'You don't owe Reach anything… you can be a Lone wolf all you want, but…' she was thrown into a brick wall, her visor cracking and her shields acting up. 'This isn't a battle you can win…' there was a small pop as a Plasma grenade landed right next to Six's face.

She stood back up and growled as her blood started to boil. She moved with so much speed and strength that the Elites were shocked by their own deaths. She picked up a Sniper Rifle, and unloaded all the rounds she could into her enemy, before finding a Rocket Launcher, and then a Shotgun, and finally a DMR. Six must have killed over a few hundred by the time she ran out of ammo and had to resort to using Covenant weapons. She was tossed into buildings, blown up, and shot numerous times in her struggles. Eventually, her suit's systems couldn't take the abuse. Her HUD was damaged and didn't show up, her Visor was too broken to look through, and she was tired from over two hours of just trying to _live_.

Six breathed hoarsely as she pulled her helmet off, blood and sweat dripping onto the ground from the end of her nose. She was injured and didn't realize it. She put the helmet on the dirt and crawled over to a nearby Assault Rifle.

A Sangheili Ultra charged at her, firing its weapon. Six gunned it down before turning and flipping an oncoming General, which she killed with the Magnum on her hip. She put the Magnum back and took a second to rest when she was suddenly struck in the right shoulder by a barrage of Plasma. The impact of the hit snapped the bone in her arm as it melted her armor is several places. She had three- no, four broken ribs.

Six pulled the Magnum back into her left hand, holding the Assault Rifle as high as she could, at her hip, to continue her fight against the ruthless enemy. Another Ultra and Major fell to the ground before SIx was tossed on her back by an Ultra. She kicked it off as a Zealot approached with an Energy Sword. She knocked the sword out of her attacker's hand, catching the deactivated blade.

The Ultra jumped on her again, this time with Six dodging its attack and elbowing it in the side of the head and throwing it off. The Zealot brought its Energy Dagger down, to which Six blocked at the last moment with her left arm. She mustered all her strength and thrust the blade through the Elite's stomach, before cutting off the Ultra's head.

'Six… Jane…' she said to herself, a few tears forming at the edges of her eyes as she struggled to stand again, gaining looks of sympathy from the aliens that would kill her at any moment. 'It is time to say goodbye…' she smiled to herself despite her pain and tears when she suddenly thought of Ryner. "There'll be another time…" Jane stumbled forwards, her vision getting darker as the fatigue and blood loss started to set in. The Elites didn't move, nor did any other member of the Covenant ground team. Suddenly, only one of the Elites started walking to her, his weapon raised. Six had surrendered to her fate, and just waited for the embrace of death.


End file.
